Fuel Contamination | Fuel Filter Issues onboard Air India AI315

Water seems to be the most likely cause of Air India, it can be delivered in the same truckload, and it would settle during ground taxi. I am fighting water right now in an older Jeep product, condensate creates water within the tank, it's not difficult to find in an aircraft, it's a bit more difficult in a land vehicle.

Ask what happens when both thrustlever angle sensors don’t receive their power? Will the engines maintain takeoff power or spool down by default when FADEC loses all input signals

Have gone down the rabbit hole on tank size and pump configuration and usage. Had a productive discussion with a 787 pilot who generously answered some questions.

Basically two wing tanks at 16,776 kg capacity each with two forward & aft electric pumps, a central tank with 68,888 kg capacity with two electric pumps (placement is a bit unclear as pilot said for & aft but since that is not right left symmetrical and each of the pumps are used in a left / right configuration). The center tank has an additional scavenging system that comes on shortly after the main wing tanks start providing fuel and will empty the center tank.

From the pilot:

“The center tank pumps (2) are normally delivering fuel to the engines for takeoff (there is no flap logic associated with their operation) meaning fuel is delivered from the center tank whenever fuel is in the center tank and the pumps are on. The 4 wing tank pumps (2 pumps in each wing tank) are all competing to deliver fuel to their respective engine as well. However, since the wing tank pumps deliver fuel at a slightly lower pressure, the center tank pumps essentially win the pressure battle until no more fuel is in the center tank.”

From the pilot:

“l do not think there is a water separator of any kind and we have no cockpit indicators for water in the fuel--mechanics do periodic sampling but I don't have any expertise in this area. I don't believe a water/fuel mixture would reduce the output pressure.. Yes, the center tanks are depleted fully using a fuel scavenging system that comes on shortly after the main wing tanks start providing fuel. There are separate pickups for each center pump (forward and aft pump) but we normally shut these pumps off once the center tank quantity reaches 5000 lbs so those pickups are not uncovered at anytime while the pumps are running. The remaining fuel in the center tank is then picked up by a fuel scavenging system (which has its own pickups at the lowest parts of the tank). and delivered to the wing tanks.”

According to my research the two engines have their own fuel filters, two filters per engine to be exact. Wouldn't the odds for both systems to be contaminated and cut off/contaminate fuel flow at the exact time is near zero?

This Zeto guy is casually flexing by doing some engine work on his private jet, like the average guy does an oil change on his own vehicle😅😅

Mhh, Fuel filter issues seem a bit unrealistic as it would be quite a miracle that both engines would stall exactly at the same time

Contamination chemtrail struff? :D

Extreme heat will cause the computer to shut down the fuel delivery system. It has happened before. No fuel contamination existed. If the RAT is deployed then pray a lot. Please do not fly in a B787 until the computer is re-programmed.

I want add a caveat here about the delta P bypass for the filters. If the filters pop because of contamination that means it is letting that contamination going further down stream and eventually into pumps and injectors which is bad. The reason is if it is bad enough pumps will fail and injectors will clog.

Why not just wait for the NTSB, Boeing, AAIB, etc.., accident investigation. Too much speculation ahead of the analysis and results of the FDR and VDR, and wreckage just adds to confusion. We have the real experts who undertake a methodical, technical and scientific approach that yields highly accurate results based on investigative measures that are proven to work. Just wait and be patient!

Let’s be really honest here. Are we really surprised by this news with the black box? With Jeju loosing the last 4 min and now the 787 FDR is “broke”. This is in the rear of the aircraft which obviously had the least amount of damage of the entire aircraft. A human survived this accident and a steel reinforced box that’s designed to remain protected during high impacts, water, and fire. Unfortunately I think this is just more Boeing fuckery. I just knew something would come up missing here. 🤦🏻‍♂️

One thought I had was India is buying a lot of fuel from Russia as it’s cheap. I don’t know if they’re buying Russian jet fuel, but Russian jet fuel is designed for cold weather ops and has a lower flashpoint than Jet A/A1. Perhaps there’s some interaction there, however I’d expect that to affect all aircraft using it.

Should note this wouldn't cause 2 engines to suddenly shutdown, fuel is double filtered before been filled up and has a warning blocked on 787 dreamliner

Fuel is normally sent from refineries to airports via pipelines. And a batch of Jet-A fuel fills multiple passenger jets within the same day. No other jets experienced problems that day.
The retain samples from the batch will likely be obtained and checked by the inspectors though. For Jet-A fuel, a sample drawn from the middle of the tank, is retained for at least 90 days just in case government inspectors need to test it in the event of a problem.

Excellent summary and analysis.

Could The ground service people accidentally pump potable water into the fuel tanks

Metal swarf FOD centre tank.

Fuel contimination is the theory that best fits everything so far

ONE WOULD THINK there should be a mechanism on-board for verifying fuel quality, by some chemical process, and warning pilots via the electrical system if a particular standard is not matched. I'm not familiar with the industry. Is this not the case?

I guess posting a link doesn't work. What do folks think about this?

Japanese investigators believe biocide treatment of fuel on a Jetstar Airways Boeing 787-8 led to the aircraft’s losing thrust in both engines during a service to Osaka’s Kansai airport two days later.

The aircraft (VH-VKJ) had departed Cairns on 29 March last year.

As it descended through 16,100ft (4,900m) towards Kansai, the crew started to receive instability indications from the right-hand General Electric GEnx-1B engine.

These were followed by a failure message for the left-hand engine a few minutes later, at about 11,800ft (3,600m), and then a similar failure message for the right-hand engine.

They landed safely but apparently something in the biocide treatment caused issues in the fuel system

I do not believe its a fuel blockage or contamination problem. Looking at the available diagrams no reasonable issue would stop both engines at the same time.
I think it's a Fadec problem, so condition fooled the system into shutting off both turbines (which is actually by shutting off the fuel controls)

Fuel contamination usually does not cause engine to failed. It cause engine to runs funny and degraded the performance.

Example is exactly the Hong Kong case, it didn’t cause engine to failed but cause engine to have issues.

Another example is Cathay A330, it cause one engine stuck below idle and one stuck above 74%N1 forcing pilot to perform the world’s fastest landing on a commercial airliner touching down at 230 knots but the engines also didn’t failed. This one also out of Hong Kong (what’s up with Hong Kong and fuel contamination?)

Even when the engines did failed, it would have various issues before it gave up. It wouldn’t just run normally and then dropped dead out of no where like this… not even with one single engine let alone both engines simultaneously.

It’s super duper extremely highly unlikely that I’ll say it’s impossible.

This airline can't possibly be considered safe to fly!

In Houston, I was taught to keep, if possible, fuel for a gas car at or above half full. Why? Heat and humidity can cause water yo condense in the gas tank.

Airplanes use different fuels. But I wonder if there is a connection?

loss of Electric power and a known software glitched raised in 2015 in a directive by boeing caused the fuel shut off valves to activate . i watched the video the guy who flue on that very plane on the inbound flight to ahmeibad pardon the spelling . i wayched that around midnight on the 13 th where the plane was showing signs of electricity problem severe ones

loss of Electric power and a known software glitched raised in 2015 in a directive by boeing caused the fuel shut off valves to activate . i watched the video the guy who flew on that very plane on the inbound flight to ahmeibad pardon the spelling . i watched that around midnight on the 13 th where the plane was showing signs of electricity problems severe ones

Do planes perform periodic data dumps from the black box to the ground?

Looking more like failure of the Bus Power Control Unit.

Why don't we have a dual filter system with bypass going to secondary filter? We dual filter system on diesel trucks and heavy machinery.

You would think they can afford quality fuel and replace fuel filters on time with all those succesfull scam calls...

As someone who works with Indians everyday; their culture seems to be to do the BARE minimum to keep something barely running.

You lose AC/DC power, fuel gets shut off.....

Victor. So I finally found the reason for the crash. Look into the fuel shut off valve mechanism when plane electrical issues with 787. There has been air worthy detectives regarding this problem. This glitch would cause for both valves to shut off. Look at the latest videos currently posted about this topic.

Fuel filters have a bypass when they clog. Then the pilots will go to the checklist and at their discretion will shutdown the engine and beat feet to the nearest suitable runway.
No other airplanes that day had any problems with the fuel and the fuel was tested and found to be clean, so contamination has been off the board for about a week now.

There is no dedicated battery for the fuel shut off valves, so meaning when transitioning from engine power to rat then digital FSOV can cause a closure of the fuel. Causing the dual engine loss.

If the fuel was that severely contaminated, wouldn't the crew get some indication between the time of engine-start and takeoff? And why didn't the previous departing aircraft have the same issue?

Original Boeing Flight Controls System had 22 hour timer rejected by FAA 2016 (internet source) that turned off system.

I've been following this. Many are hinting at a FADEC failure. Hopefully the FDR shows something definitive

nonsense - this is part of a coverup which is starting

Have a fuel filter bypass through another standby clean filter 👽

My favorite channel

It's difficult to make it through a video when someone is saying "ya know" every 2 seconds like a ditz.

Zeto i your twin?

Normally the engines aren't started at the same time, so it's hard to explain how fuel contamination could cause them to both fail at the exact same time the way they seemed to with the air India crash. Going from normal rotation to duel engine failure that quickly is tough to explain

What are the maintenance routines of checking the fuel filter on B787 ? Surely there must be an international standard that needs to be followed?

I forgot to mention that fuel filter sensors work measuring differential pressure through the filter. The Caution Message can be produced due to a failure in that sensor too.

Also I have read that there was a case in which the filter had not been installed back in position after maintenance. I don't know if a warning message would appear in that case or the fuel would just flow through 'no filter' and end up in the engine unfiltered. Can you guys tell?