Recently returned to service Qantas A380 grounded in LA

By Andrew Curran.

A recently returned to service Qantas A380 is grounded in Los Angeles after it suffered damage to its left wing during its first revenue flight in almost six years.

The aircraft, VH-OQC (msn 022), ferried to Sydney amid considerable PR fanfare on December 3 after spending the first half of this decade in storage in Victorville (VCV) and later Abu Dhabi (AUH).

A week prior to that, Qantas International CEO Cameron Wallace told Aero South Pacific that the airline planned to use the plane as an operational spare.

On December 7, the airline used VH-OQC to operate QF11 between Sydney and Los Angeles (LAX). It was the aircraft's first commercial flight since early 2020.

However, the first flight did not go smoothly. There was an electrical outage in the cabin during the 13-hour flight. Passengers reported on social media that this caused issues with inflight entertainment systems, lighting, seats, and the toilets.

“No TVs were working, no lights in most of the cabins, most seats wouldn't recline. I even heard some toilets were overflowing,” one passenger posted on Instagram.

Qantas has confirmed only that the inflight entertainment system went down during the flight “for most customers.”

Qantas A380 experiences slat damage during landing at LA

The aircraft also experienced a slat delamination towards the end of the flight - a not entirely uncommon problem for A380s.

Emirates and Singapore Airlines have previously experienced issues with slat damage during the extension process while on approach to land.

“A section of the slat on the left wing of one of our A380s was found to be damaged after landing in Los Angeles, Sunday local time,” a Qantas spokesperson told Aero South Pacific. “The aircraft operated normally and landed without incident.”

VH-OQC was scheduled to operate the return QF12 service to Sydney later that day. However, Qantas cancelled that flight.   

A bonding issue involving the leading-edge slat

In July, Global Aerospace News reported on an apparent bonding issue involving the leading-edge slats on most modern Airbus aircraft, including the A380s, whereby ruptures can occur between the honeycomb core and the upper and lower skin layers of the slats.

The manufacturer, Belgium-based Sonaca, says it isn’t a manufacturing flaw and the problem is arising post-production. Airbus says the defects are not a safety issue, but it is preparing to release service bulletins early next year requiring airlines to increase inspections of the leading-edge slats during A and C maintenance checks.

Qantas says it expects the replacement slat part to be ferried to Los Angeles within the next 24 hours and for VH-OQC to return to Sydney on October 11 (US Pacific time).

“Engineers are now replacing the slat so it can return to operations this week," the spokesperson said.

Qantas operates ten A380-800s to Los Angeles, Dallas, Johannesburg, Singapore, and London. They parked the fleet (along with most of their other long-haul aircraft) at the start of the pandemic in early 2020. For various reasons, including a lack of MRO slots, VH-OQC was the last of those parked aircraft to return to service. Qantas says it required over 100,000-man hours to get the plane back in the air.

Qantas also says that if VH-OQC remains on the ground in Los Angeles for longer than anticipated, they will contact passengers about any flight changes.

Photo: Qantas.