Qantas 747 Makes Emergency Landing In Manila

[Goshawk]

A passenger plane en route from London to Melbourne has made an emergency landing in the Philippines after a large hole appeared in its fuselage.

news & video can be seen here and here

attempted terrorism..? jeez.. scary..

[Carib]

Shall we wait for the official " thing" before we start stirring things up??

[Farma]

The news I’ve seen and read doesn’t suggest terrorism in the incident.

The official investigation will find out the cause although aviation sources in Australia are suggesting this particular aircraft had a history of corrosion and “engineers discovered a large amount of corrosion in the Qantas jumbo during a major refurbishment earlier this year”.

[Mosha]

Footage on BBC shows the hole more or less following the rivet line

[Tywais]

""From the pictures that we've seen out of Manila during the course of the day, it would seem that one of the panels to the outer skin of the aircraft has literally come away from the rest of the fuselage," Chris Yates, an aviation expert at Jane's Aviation, told The Associated Press."

"Yates said investigators will examine closely the fracture points that showed up on the skin of the aircraft to determine whether metal fatigue or manufacturing defect caused the panel to peel away."

Source: FOXNews

[geriatrickid]

I saw the initial Aus. papers report of corrosion but they also said it was remedied during the refit. Question, are planes used in tropical climates more susceptible to corrosion because of the climate and proximity to salt water or is this typical of airframes no matter where used? The last plane that had major loss of hull was that plane in Hawaii, a humid & salt water area of operation.

The reason I ask is that I am going to be a few long hauls over the next few months and I have the option of choosing flights with newer aircraft (B777) vs. older aircraft ( B747 or A340).

Hopefully one of you aeronautical types can tell me I'm all wet.

Thanks

[lomatopo]

I think this is a relevant AD. I doubt salt water is an issue unless you submerge the airframe in the ocean? My guess is that there are similar AD's on B777's and A-340's.

[Carib]

Salt water is an issue, especially in a tropical and humid environment.

Where i am now, ( tropical) the airfield is located on the shore edge, with the always blowing trade winds taking lots and lots of salt along.

Our aircraft operating in europe are in absolutely better shape than the ones which were based here. Corrosion related problems are huge in comparison to the same type of aircraft with the same ammount of flying hours/landings/airframe pressurization cycles and so on.

The airframe washing normally has te be done every 30 days, but operating here it has to be done every 15 days. Reason: salt.

Engine rinsing normally has te be done every 8 days. Here after every last flight of the day, for the same reason...salt and the damage it does.

[george]

Qantas passengers tell of faulty oxygen masks

SYDNEY: -- Passengers on a Qantas jumbo jet that was forced to land in Manila said Sunday that lives were put at risk because oxygen masks failed to deploy or turned out to be faulty.

"The elastic was so old that it had deteriorated," David Saunders told The Age newspaper. "I was trying to get my passport, and every time I got my passport the mask fell off and I started to pass out."

Saunders was aboard QF30 from Hong Kong to Melbourne when the 17-year-old Boeing 747-438 blew a hole in its side on Friday and plummeted towards the South China Sea 9,000 metres below.

"A guy just went into a panic and smashed the whole panel off the ceiling to get to the mask," Saunders said. "The kids were screaming and flailing. Their cheeks and lips were turning blue from lack of oxygen."

Another of the 346 passengers, Paula Madejon, said she had to share her mask with two others and that in the row behind her no one had a mask.

The paper reported that a source close to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority said oxygen cylinders bursting was the likely cause of the blast that punctured the fuselage. The cylinders were stored in the exact location of the explosion and there were no signs of a fire.

A report from the Manila International Airport Authority said an initial investigation revealed there had been an "explosive decompression" but did not speculate on the cause.

Since its establishment in 1920, Australia's national carrier has never lost a jet to an accident. Claims that oxygen masks malfunctioned - some because the elastic had weathered with age - are an embarrassment to the airline.

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon said reports that rust caused the fuselage to break away should be discounted. He said the plane had undergone checks in 2004, 2006 and earlier this year, all in Australia.

Passenger Beverley Doors confirmed to Australia's ABC Radio that not all passengers had oxygen masks.

"When the oxygen came down, some didn't come down," she said. "Ours didn't come down, and my husband just about went out to it because he didn't have any oxygen for about three minutes."

-- DPA 2008-07-27

[froggshw]

Well I think they should ground all 747's until safety checks have been made..very lucky people were not killed.

Froggs

[zorro1]

Qantas has a perfect safety record having NEVER lost a passenger on a jet flight. Simply through calculating the odds ,that to me spells disaster as theoretically its seems impossible given the time frame of 40 years or so and how many flights? I wish them continued good luck although the chances of a major catastrophe must be getting very close (know it sounds pesermistic but its just number crunching)

[lomatopo]

Two oxygen cannisters, used to supply the flight deck, are housed near the area where the rupture occured. Speculation is that one or both cannisters exploded, perhaps due to being damaged by poorly secured cargo.

Corrosion appears to have played no part in the rupture. I guess some Australian newspapers jumped the gun on that one.

“The particular incident of corrosion that was reported was found during a routine check in February of this year,” Peter Gibson, spokesman for the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, said by telephone. “The corrosion was very minor and was found in a seat track in economy class, so it is in a completely different part of the aircraft. That corrosion can in no way be connected to the accident.”

Geoff Dixon, chief executive of Qantas, agreed with Mr. Gibson at a news conference Saturday.

“Our preliminary checks on this indicate that there was no corrosion anywhere near where this hole appeared,” he said. “This was a very, very serious incident. It was one that was handled exceedingly well by those in charge of the aircraft.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/world/as...ml?ref=business

Thank goodness no one was injured.

[Carib]

From Times OnlineJuly 28, 2008

US warned of faulty 747 oxygen tanks months before Qantas blast

(Edwin Loobrera/AFP/getty Images)

The gaping hole in the side of the Qantas 747, which was bound for Melbourne

Sophie Tedmanson in Sydney

US aviation authorities warned of problems with oxygen tanks on board Boeing 747s months before the explosion that ripped a hole in a Qantas jumbo jet on Friday, it has emerged.

The US Federal Aviation Administration had ordered thorough checks of US-registered Boeing 747s after a report found many of the oxygen cylinders needed to be replaced.

“We are issuing this [directive] to prevent failure to oxygen cylinder support under the most critical flight load conditions, which would cause the oxygen cylinder to come loose and leak oxygen,” the FAA told airlines.

A faulty oxygen cylinder is thought to be at the centre of the explosion on board a Qantas jet on Friday which ripped a 10ft hole in QF30, which was en route from London to Melbourne via Hong Kong.

The explosion forced the 747, with 346 passengers and 19 crew on board, to descend 20,000ft and make an emergency landing in Manila.

Investigations continue in Manila today, however officials said an oxygen back-up cylinder was missing from the aircraft, and have ordered Qantas to inspect all such bottles on its fleet of Boeing 747s.

Qantas began to inspect their 30-strong 747 fleet this morning.

An investigator from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, Neville Blyth, said: “It is too early to say whether this was the cause of the explosion, but one of the cylinders which provides back-up oxygen is missing.” He said investigators had ruled out terrorism.

Geoff Dixon, Qantas CEO, said that whatever caused a mid-air emergency was more than likely beyond the control of the airline.

He told a news conference today that the cause of the incident that ripped the giant hole in the fuselage of the passenger jet was a mechanical fault.

Mr Dixon also said that the US warning in April about oxygen tank concerns on airliners was not anything to do with the potential cause of Friday's incident.

A spokesman for Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), Peter Gibson, said that the American directive was limited to a certain number of support brackets, racks that held the oxygen tanks in place on the plane, and not the actual bottles.

He said the report had been picked up by Qantas earlier this year but that the checks were limited to a certain batch number of the racks.

“Qantas had done the inspections (of their aircraft) earlier this year - there were only three aircraft that were affected. The plane in Manilla was not one of these aircraft.”

Some passengers on board QF30 have described not having access to oxygen during the mid-air drama, or complained of the masks being faulty.

Debra Manchester, a British passenger, who was sitting in first class when the explosion occurred, told the Times Online that her oxygen mask did not work in the midst of the chaos inside the cabin.

“Mine came totally out of the ceiling,” she said. “But I quickly got another one so was able to use it in time.”

However Qantas’s head of engineering, David Cox, said the oxygen masks should have been in good condition.

“There is a maintenance regime on the masks and every indication we have is that they were in perfect working order before the flight,” Mr Cox told The Australian.

The Boeing 747 involved in Friday’s incident had an extensive overhaul in Sydney four years ago and had two checks done in New South Wales and Victoria earlier this year.

Mr Dixon defended the maintenance and safety record of Qantas, saying the 747 involved in emergency landing on Friday was in good condition when it left Hong Kong.

"We believe everything on that aircraft was in good shape when it took off," he said. "Incidents do happen. This is a tremendously bad one, and it's one we regret.”

The controversy comes at a time when questions have been raised about how Qantas maintains its planes.

Last month the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association hit out at the international airline’s moves to increase the amount of maintenance work performed offshore, including Malaysia, the US and London.

At the time outgoing Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon dismissed the claim, saying 15-20 per cent of Qantas engineering had been done offshore for 50 years and that checks would be supervised by Qantas engineers.

Mr Gibson today supported Mr Dixon’s comments.

“There is nothing inherently unsafe about maintenance being done overseas,” he said.

“The maintenance has to be done to Australian standards, it is audited by us (CASA) and audited by Qantas so is performed to our safety standards.”

It was also announced on Monday that Alan Joyce, the head of Qantas’s budget airline Jetstar, who previously worked with Ireland’s Aer Lingus airline, would take over as Qantas CEO when Mr Dixon steps down in November.

In a separate development, Qantas has been ranked among the top four most trusted airlines by Asia Pacific travellers in a study by Unisys. Locally-based carriers were more trusted than those based in Europe or North America for passengers in the Asia-Pacific region.

Source http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ne...icle4414114.ece

[onzestan]

Qantas has 2nd safety scare just days after the Manilla incident.

Full details here :http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2008-07-28-qantas-scare_N.htm?csp=34

Maintenance?

cheers

onzestan

[Crushdepth]

I'd travel Qantas any day over some dodgy budget airline that is maintained and staffed by clueless relatives of the management. Qantas maintenance/engineers are good and so are their pilots and crew.

Qantas is also a lot more transparent about reporting problems than some of the 'regionals', who typically report safety problems after they've had a 'hard landing' that nobody walked away from (ie. that they couldn't cover up).

[onzestan]

I'd travel Qantas any day over some dodgy budget airline that is maintained and staffed by clueless relatives of the management. Qantas maintenance/engineers are good and so are their pilots and crew.

Qantas is also a lot more transparent about reporting problems than some of the 'regionals', who typically report safety problems after they've had a 'hard landing' that nobody walked away from (ie. that they couldn't cover up).

Hard to cover up these 2 incidents isn't it.

Maybe it's time to give the oldest 747's a well deserved retirement?

drive safely

onzestan

[Carib]

I donot think anybody will cover something up, these things happen, and if the older 747 has to go, well than a lot of other aircraft will have to go to.

By the way the second incident was not a 747.

If it turns out to be an oxygen bottle it has got nothing to do with the 747, it is not an integral part of the aircraft, it could have been built in to another model/plane too.

In that case the 747 proofed to be extremely airworthty after decompressing in the way it did.

Aircraft are like busses, but on a higher level, and busses get punctures and breakdown too.

[dekka007]

I have the option of choosing flights with newer aircraft (B777) vs. older aircraft ( B747 or A340).

I wouldnt exactly class the 747-400 and A340 as old. I would not even think twice about choosing between the 777, 747, A340. safety wise there is nothing in it. The 747 and A340 have obviously been a lot more refined over the years than the 777. I wouldnt let it concern you to be honest.

[jetjock]

I have the option of choosing flights with newer aircraft (B777) vs. older aircraft ( B747 or A340).

I wouldnt exactly class the 747-400 and A340 as old. I would not even think twice about choosing between the 777, 747, A340. safety wise there is nothing in it. The 747 and A340 have obviously been a lot more refined over the years than the 777. I wouldnt let it concern you to be honest.

Four jet engines are normally safer than three--and three engines are normally safer than two. A 747 will fly OK with 2 engines out as long as it is light enough. Try flying a 777 with 2 engines out. The main reason that the airlines switched to 2 engine aircraft is because of fuel savings and not because it is as safe as a 3 or 4 engine airplane. For safety give me an 'old 747' anytime over a 777 and I have flown them both.

[dekka007]

For safety give me an 'old 747' anytime over a 777 and I have flown them both.

I am happy enough with Etops on a 777. Chances are as I am sure you know if you have incident whether fuel, external influence (Ash) etc. that would cause a catastrophic failure of 2 etop engines simultaneously then chances are on your 747 that same incident would have caused you to lose all four of your non etop engines.

Statistically Etops twins are shown to be just as safe as 3 engine and 4 engine airplanes hence they are certified as such. Dont scare readers to fly on a B777 or any other modern day etop twin

Edited July 29, 2008 by dekka007

[zorro1]

Also twice as many things can go wrong on a 747. A lot hard core prop pilots prefer a single engine for the same reason

[dekka007]

prop pilots

What do they know

[Who, me ?]

whatever is said there, the main issue is not age....it is maintenance

Qantas with "old" aircrafts will always be better than Garuda for example even with newer planes

4 engines vs 3 or 2 is also not a big deal.....Chances are very slim that an engine shutdown anyway.

I would fly Qantas anytime without a second thought...I would be much more reluctant with some other companies, even based in Europe !!

[onzestan]

whatever is said there, the main issue is not age....it is maintenance

Exactly!

Maybe I'm not so knowledgeable about airplanes as some of the other posters seem to be, but the fact is that a size-able portion of the oxygen masks did not deploy, and that many of them that did were faulty, that indicates to me that somewhere, something was neglected.

If that should happen to me, 3 minutes without oxygen, with my frail health, I'd be dead.

Drive safely

onzestan

[Spee]

Qantas has 2nd safety scare just days after the Manilla incident.

Full details here :http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2008-07-28-qantas-scare_N.htm?csp=34

Hardly a "safety scare." More like yet another USA Today sensationalizing headline with very little "meat" in the actual incident or story.

[onzestan]

Qantas has 2nd safety scare just days after the Manilla incident.

Full details here :http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2008-07-28-qantas-scare_N.htm?csp=34

Hardly a "safety scare." More like yet another USA Today sensationalizing headline with very little "meat" in the actual incident or story.

Now if I was a passenger on a Qantas aircraft that had to return to airport for technical reasons, just days after another incident

you can bet I'd be scared, as a lot of the passengers seem to have been, and no I'm not American.

I don't understand why people feel the need to minimize actual incidents just because it's an airline with an exceptional safety reputation. Because something hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it never will.

Oh and BTW it wasn't only in US newspapers, but in newspapers all over the world, but I didn't think Dutch language (my mother tongue) articles were appropriate for an English language forum.

Drive safely

onzestan

[jetjock]

For safety give me an 'old 747' anytime over a 777 and I have flown them both.

I am happy enough with Etops on a 777. Chances are as I am sure you know if you have incident whether fuel, external influence (Ash) etc. that would cause a catastrophic failure of 2 etop engines simultaneously then chances are on your 747 that same incident would have caused you to lose all four of your non etop engines.

When you say 'chances are',does that mean it is based on your statistics? Sorry but I do not buy into your selected hypothetical statements. JJ

Statistically Etops twins are shown to be just as safe as 3 engine and 4 engine airplanes hence they are certified as such. Dont scare readers to fly on a B777 or any other modern day etop twin

Tell me about it. I am happy to hear that your statistics will make you feel very safe and comfortable when you lose just one engine and are out over the ocean and many miles from land and the nearest airport. To each his own however I have been there and hopefully you have been fortunate and have not. JJ

dekka007, I am not sure how you read into my statements that a 777 is not safe because that definitely is not what I said. I did however infer that I consider 4 engines safer than three or two. Safety is of course a matter of degree and very important to airlines but unfortunately economics is the number one priority as that is the only thing that keeps them in business and that is why fuel efficiency and engine maintenance costs are so important to an airline when choosing the type of aircraft that they buy. In my humble opinion the 747 is one of the safest aircraft that has ever been built. It is your right to dispute my statements and you are entitled to your opinion as I am to mine. I wish you happy flying.

[jetjock]

Also twice as many things can go wrong on a 747. A lot hard core prop pilots prefer a single engine for the same reason

zorro1, I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Hopefully it is not that a single engine prop is as safe as a 747. In my humble opinion after spending the last 51 years flying single engine props and jets and four engine props and jets and many things in between, I am of the belief that engines on airplanes are just like women which is 'the more I have, the merrier I am !'

Gettin back to the topic of the Qantas incident, if it was an oxygen bottle that blew then of course it has nothing to do with the type of aircraft and little to do with the age of the aircraft but everything to do with the age and maintenance of the oxygen bottles and system.

edited for spelling JJ

Edited July 29, 2008 by jetjock

[Farma]

Qantas aren’t having a good run are they. First the Manila incident followed by the stuck u/c door in Adelaide and now a burst primary hyd pipe in Brisbane.

Oops and add to that claims many of the servicings are pencil jobs.

Edited July 29, 2008 by Farma

[dekka007]

Sorry but I do not buy into your selected hypothetical statements

jetjock, What I was trying to say is that if you have a dual failure on a B777 or any other etops twin then what caused it(looking back at history of incidents on dual/triple/quad failures and what could possibly cause them on today's airliners) the cause would have effected any airplane in the same way no matter how many engines you have 2,4,6,8,10.....

This old school thinking about 4 is better than 2 and not good as 6 engines...quite frankly is wrong when looking at how far for example the latest PW,GE or RR etops engines have come compared to what is bolted on a 747-200,300 and even some early 400's.

oh and btw yes I have had 2 fails in my career on commercial aircraft 1 of which was halfway across the atlantic in a NON etops jet on a flight between Recife and sal in the cape verde

islands - so been there also.

Perhaps the 74 was the aircraft you enjoyed operating the most and perhaps your are a little biased towards that type?

For those who wish to read an interesting article on the debate taken from Boeing Frontiers magazine:

Boeing Frontiers

Anyway I am in no way disrepecting your opinion, however I do feel it is very narrow minded considering how far engineering has come these days compared to days gone by.. I wish you happy retirement

Edited July 30, 2008 by dekka007