What happened
On July 30, 2010, at approximately 12:55 PM local time, a Boeing 747-400, registration VH-OJP, operating flight QF-74, experienced an uncontained No. 4 engine failure. The incident occurred roughly 45 minutes after the aircraft departed from San Francisco, CA, while climbing through FL250.
The aircraft was en route to Sydney, Australia, carrying 212 passengers and 19 crewmembers. Following the failure, the flight crew shut down the engine and descended the aircraft to FL200. The crew performed a fuel dump over the Pacific Ocean before returning to San Francisco, where the aircraft landed safely approximately 80 minutes after its initial departure. There were no injuries reported.
The investigation
Post-event inspections of the aircraft revealed a large hole in the outboard side of the No. 4 engine nacelle, located near the engine turbine section. No additional damage to the airframe was reported. The aircraft is equipped with Rolls-Royce RB211 turbofan engines.