Qantas - another incident 28 July

[yeadrian 0]

 

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,2...267-661,00.html

 

BREAKING NEWS: A QANTAS flight bound for Melbourne made an emergency landing tonight after a door reportedly opened mid-flight.

 

The flight, believed to be QF692, took off from Adelaide at 6.08pm but turned around and landed safely 37 minutes later. There was confusion over what caused the emergency. Passengers said a door opened mid-flight, causing "chaos" in the cabin. But airline sources said the doors covering the wheel bay did not close properly after take-off. The aircraft turned around near Murray Bridge, about 60km from Adelaide, and landed safely at 6.45pm. A Boeing 737-800 usually flies the Adelaide to Melbourne leg. The aircraft remained at Adelaide Airport while passengers were transferred to another Melbourne flight.

A Qantas spokesperson refused to comment beyond confirming an incident had occurred on the flight.

 

The drama comes just three days after a mid-air emergency aboard a Qantas 747 on Friday.

A ruptured oxygen bottle is believed to have ripped a 3m hole in the side of QF30 from Hong Kong to Melbourne, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Manila. It was revealed yesterday a piece of metal from the bottle sliced into the cabin of the jet, just missing passengers.

[Hakan 2]

which door? cabin door or wheel bay door?

[Simon 3]

What type of aircraft?

 

Who the pilot will blame this time??

Edited July 28, 2008 by Simon

[Keith T 2]

which door? cabin door or wheel bay door?

 

The latter.

 

I suspect this story wouldn't have had the same reporting urgency were it not for the QF30 incident.

[MIR 2]

Qantas flight returns to Adelaide after undercarriage problem

A QANTAS flight bound for Melbourne was forced to return to Adelaide Airport last night when the landing gear doors failed to close.

The Boeing 767-338 – flight QF692 – was forced to turn around 20 minutes after take-off about 5.40pm and it landed safely back in Adelaide at 6.15pm.

 

The incident came only three days after a Qantas Boeing 747-400 made an emergency landing in Manila after a gaping hole appeared in its fuselage.

 

Disgruntled passengers on the Melbourne flight last night told The Advertiser they would refuse to fly with Qantas again following the airline's second mid-air scare since Friday.

 

Qantas would not say how many passengers were on board QF692, however, a Boeing 767-338 can carry up to 254 passengers. Most of the passengers were transferred to later Qantas flights but some refused, choosing to fly with Virgin Blue – or even take other means of transport.

 

Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said the aircraft's wheels came up after take-off but the undercarriage door would not retract.

 

The malfunction was on the "lower end" of the danger scale.

 

"This aircraft was not in danger at any stage, it was more of an aerodynamics issue than anything else," Mr Gibson said.

 

"The pilot would have had to have made a judgment call, like he was trained to do, and he decided to bring the flight back to Adelaide, which was the safer option."

 

The aircraft last night was at Gate 18 at Adelaide Airport, awaiting inspection by engineers this morning.

 

Passenger Ania Gabala said she was scared when the plane had to turn around. "Just as we started to ascend there was a grinding noise under the plane and I kept saying to my partner: `Is it supposed to be like this'," she said.

 

Another passenger, Katherine Morgan, said there were "terrible vibrations" throughout the cabin.

 

"People looked worried after last week's activities on Qantas, but the crew were fantastic," she said.

 

A Qantas spokeswoman said last night: "The flight performed a routine air turn-back shortly after takeoff due to an indication of one of the landing gear doors failing to retract."

 

South African passenger Gunter Kubler said he would refuse to fly with Qantas now. "It was absolute chaos on the plane and then they had to turn it around," he said. "They had to bring in another plane to fly people back but I don't trust them so I will take a bus or a train to Melbourne. It's bloody ridiculous."

 

But Northern Territory man Richard Hack said the incident had been a "textbook" operation and that while he believed passengers were nervous after the previous emergency, everbody had remained calm and the crew had been "superb".

 

Mr Hack said he had been sitting right over the vibration in the plane, but he hadn't been worried that the flight could be in danger.

 

But he said any passenger perceptions of dropping safety standards on Qantas jets "is probably a message for Qantas that they need to have maintenance done by Australians in Australia".

 

Mr Gibson said he expected an incident report from Qantas within the next couple of days.

 

Yesterday, it was reported a CASA investigation found a QantasLink Dash 8 flew three times between Canberra and Sydney earlier this year with an undercarriage that could not retract automatically. It asked Qantas to change its operations procedure and the plane's manufacturer to modify its maintenance manuals.

 

-adelaidenow

 

 

[Yusoff 1]

[sacarsm]Hmmm.... <_ this part must have been supplied by malaysian counterpart.... ooh they are sooo bad. stripping qantas high standard to barely minimum... bad...>

[yeadrian 0]

They still don't get it that it's Qantas' own safety standard that is resulting in the jet issues - he is still blaming non Australians....

Gosh - I hope they don't go as low as scapegoat"ing" Qantas immigrant's/non australian staff's to blame for Qantas aircrafts issues...

 

 

"But he said any passenger perceptions of dropping safety standards on Qantas jets "is probably a message for Qantas that they need to have maintenance done by Australians in Australia"."

[Chan CS 0]

I'm not so sure, but will an unretracted landing gear cause that much of vibration (terrible vibration as referred to the article)? Anyone can help clarify this?

[Yusoff 1]

I'm not so sure, but will an unretracted landing gear cause that much of vibration (terrible vibration as referred to the article)? Anyone can help clarify this?

I believed the problem is with the gears doors. anyhow, let it be the doors or the undercarriage, both disrupts the aerodynamic flow especially when travelling at high speed. It's like sticking out your hand out of your car while travelling 110kmph on the PLUS highway. not just your hand, your body shakes terribly too...

[Khaled 2]

They still don't get it that it's Qantas' own safety standard that is resulting in the jet issues - he is still blaming non Australians....

Gosh - I hope they don't go as low as scapegoat"ing" Qantas immigrant's/non australian staff's to blame for Qantas aircrafts issues...

 

 

"But he said any passenger perceptions of dropping safety standards on Qantas jets "is probably a message for Qantas that they need to have maintenance done by Australians in Australia"."

 

 

You see, this statement is quite true because those aircraft sent for servicing in ASIA done by Australian engineers also. Because of sudden rise in malfunction to their aircraft operations, Australian engineers only is not good enough. The requirement now is that they must be Australian Engineers, working in Australia!

 

Australia Boleh! Qantas Boleh!

[Radzi 2]

Making a mountain out of a molehill.

 

This whole "door open in flight" thing is a joke. I had a landing gear that was unable to remain retracted a few years ago. The mechanical lock was faulty; the gear went up with hydraulic power but once the elver was put to off and hydraulic power removed, the gear becomes extended again. I was enroute to BKI from KUL; not enough fuel to continue to BKI and too heavy for normal inflight return, so I left the gear down and descend with speedbrakes. The noise and vibration was, of course, much higher than normal. Some PA from the operating flightdeck crew will calm the situation and keep the passangers informed. Overall, it was a non-issue.

 

And no, I didn't make it to the news. Not even small local ones.

[BC Tam 2]

..... I was enroute to BKI from KUL; not enough fuel to continue to BKI and too heavy for normal inflight return, so I left the gear down and descend with speedbrakes

Captain,

Why was that ?

Had to spend time circling whilst trying to retract gear or unretracted gear caused so much degradation of aerodynamics that fuel consumption shot up ?

In the end how ? Burnt up excess fuel then land ?

[yeadrian 0]

Capt Radzi,

Apart from the aircraft being grounded for engineering checks (intensive checks or similar checks?), Passengers rerouted, etc... (Is this still non issue? I am sure there are financial losses, great inconvenience to passengers inevitably due to safety)

Does MH treat this as somewhat urgent? Unretractable gears are not frequent occurance or they are just not important to be reported, hence the ignorance en masse (including yours truly) ?

 

Good thing you did not make it to the news, but if MH had a 747 scare akin to Qantas in the same time frame, you will be for sure be in the limelight..... headlines - maybe hero returning the aircraft to safety.....

 

i can always feel the landing gear being lowered during landing as a passenger, since the 767 is much bigger than 737, am i right to say that the vibration is more pronounced than a smaller aircraft?

If the landing gear is retracted but the door is not, will the disturbance to aerodynamics be any different?

 

(When the mountain is removed, the molehill is very visible )

 

 

Making a mountain out of a molehill.

 

This whole "door open in flight" thing is a joke. I had a landing gear that was unable to remain retracted a few years ago. The mechanical lock was faulty; the gear went up with hydraulic power but once the elver was put to off and hydraulic power removed, the gear becomes extended again. I was enroute to BKI from KUL; not enough fuel to continue to BKI and too heavy for normal inflight return, so I left the gear down and descend with speedbrakes. The noise and vibration was, of course, much higher than normal. Some PA from the operating flightdeck crew will calm the situation and keep the passangers informed. Overall, it was a non-issue.

And no, I didn't make it to the news. Not even small local ones.

 

[Radzi 2]

Captain,

Why was that ?

Had to spend time circling whilst trying to retract gear or unretracted gear caused so much degradation of aerodynamics that fuel consumption shot up ?

In the end how ? Burnt up excess fuel then land ?

 

The B737 has no provision for fuel dumping so if there is excess fuel to burn before landing you can lower the gear and open up the power to burn up the fuel. The landing gear hanging down cause a lot of drag; that is why normally you'll lower the gear as late as possible before landing.

 

Any economic factors as well as passenger convenience is a distance second when it comes to safety; at least it is true for the airline that I work with.

 

[Ashmil Abd Ghani 0]

...at least it is true for the airline that I work with...

 

Good point..i love this short statement.. :clapping:

[BC Tam 2]

..... before landing you can lower the gear and open up the power to burn up the fuel. The landing gear hanging down cause a lot of drag; .....

I can imagine the stress level going up amongst pax within with the inflight undercarriage induced vibration and engine powering up But you gotta do what you gotta do !

[Yusoff 1]

....

And no, I didn't make it to the news. Not even small local ones.

Didn't make it to the news? But you deserves a big pat on the back. Superb job back then, capitan!!

[Ganesh.r 0]

On the same Issue.. got this off a new paper in Australia

-

 

QANTAS passengers were starved of oxygen for several minutes during the emergency incident over the South China Sea last week.

An experienced aircraft engineer, who asked not to be identified, said yesterday he believed that three intact passenger supply cylinders vented their contents into the atmosphere after a regulator had blown off a fourth tank.

 

Last Friday's Melbourne-bound flight from Hong Kong was forced to make an emergency landing in Manila after a 2m hole was blasted through the fuselage of the Boeing 747, which was carrying 365 passengers and crew.

 

According to passengers, several children who were wearing oxygen masks turned blue during the 10 minutes it took the aircraft to descend from 29,000 feet to a safe breathing level of 14,000 feet.

 

Blue skin is a strong indicator of hypoxia or lack of oxygen in the blood, as is nausea. Several passengers vomited during the ordeal.

 

The aircraft engineer said there must have been some oxygen available because the doors that release the masks for passengers are oxygen-operated.

 

A faulty regulator that sits on top of the cylinder is the suspected cause of the near-disaster.

 

Sources close to the investigation said it was believed the steel regulator penetrated the cabin floor after it was blown off the cylinder stored in the forward cargo hold.

 

The oxygen tank then ricocheted around the hold until it smashed through the outer skin and into the atmosphere, gouging a 2m hole in the aircraft.

 

It is understood that over pressurisation and over-heating have been ruled out because both those safety systems were intact.

 

But the actual cause of the worst Qantas safety incident in years might never be confirmed because the key piece of evidence, the fibre-coated steel gas cylinder about the size of a scuba tank, is at the bottom of the South China Sea.

 

Possible contributing factors include physical damage, corrosion or water contamination.

 

Both Qantas and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau yesterday refused to comment on the engineer's theory.

 

And in a further safety scare for Qantas, last night it was revealed that a Perth-Sydney flight appeared to be low on fuel before the pilot realised reserve fuel pump switches were off.

 

Qantas chief pilot Captain Chris Manning said the incident was taken "extremely seriously".

 

Read more about the fuel switch bungle.

 

On Monday night, a domestic Qantas jet was forced to return to Adelaide after a wheel-bay door failed to close.

 

But the recent incidents should not bring about wider worries, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority said yesterday. "We've been looking very carefully at Qantas' safety all throughout this year," authority spokesman Peter Gibson said.

 

The ATSB yesterday revealed that the cockpit voice recorder, which records crew conversations, radio traffic and cockpit ambient sounds, did not contain Friday's event.

 

The aircraft flight data recorder, which nominally records 25 hours of data, was downloaded yesterday and specialists will know in the next day or two if the recording contains any valid data.

 

Interviews with both flight crew and cabin crew were also conducted yesterday in Melbourne.

 

Friday's incident has focused attention on the airlines' overseas maintenance regime.

 

In one recent example, a Qantas Boeing 737 VH-TJU was released by Malaysian Airlines and Qantas engineers found 95 defects that were missed in Kuala Lumpur.

 

They included a galley that was so badly installed that a flight attendant suffered an electric shock and posed a serious fire risk.

 

[Nik H. 3]

On the same Issue.. got this off a new paper in Australia

-

 

QANTAS passengers were starved of oxygen for several minutes during the emergency incident over the South China Sea last week.

An experienced aircraft engineer, who asked not to be identified, said yesterday he believed that three intact passenger supply cylinders vented their contents into the atmosphere after a regulator had blown off a fourth tank.

 

Last Friday's Melbourne-bound flight from Hong Kong was forced to make an emergency landing in Manila after a 2m hole was blasted through the fuselage of the Boeing 747, which was carrying 365 passengers and crew.

 

According to passengers, several children who were wearing oxygen masks turned blue during the 10 minutes it took the aircraft to descend from 29,000 feet to a safe breathing level of 14,000 feet.

 

Blue skin is a strong indicator of hypoxia or lack of oxygen in the blood, as is nausea. Several passengers vomited during the ordeal.

 

The aircraft engineer said there must have been some oxygen available because the doors that release the masks for passengers are oxygen-operated.

 

A faulty regulator that sits on top of the cylinder is the suspected cause of the near-disaster.

 

Sources close to the investigation said it was believed the steel regulator penetrated the cabin floor after it was blown off the cylinder stored in the forward cargo hold.

 

The oxygen tank then ricocheted around the hold until it smashed through the outer skin and into the atmosphere, gouging a 2m hole in the aircraft.

 

It is understood that over pressurisation and over-heating have been ruled out because both those safety systems were intact.

 

But the actual cause of the worst Qantas safety incident in years might never be confirmed because the key piece of evidence, the fibre-coated steel gas cylinder about the size of a scuba tank, is at the bottom of the South China Sea.

 

Possible contributing factors include physical damage, corrosion or water contamination.

 

Both Qantas and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau yesterday refused to comment on the engineer's theory.

 

And in a further safety scare for Qantas, last night it was revealed that a Perth-Sydney flight appeared to be low on fuel before the pilot realised reserve fuel pump switches were off.

 

Qantas chief pilot Captain Chris Manning said the incident was taken "extremely seriously".

 

Read more about the fuel switch bungle.

 

On Monday night, a domestic Qantas jet was forced to return to Adelaide after a wheel-bay door failed to close.

 

But the recent incidents should not bring about wider worries, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority said yesterday. "We've been looking very carefully at Qantas' safety all throughout this year," authority spokesman Peter Gibson said.

 

The ATSB yesterday revealed that the cockpit voice recorder, which records crew conversations, radio traffic and cockpit ambient sounds, did not contain Friday's event.

 

The aircraft flight data recorder, which nominally records 25 hours of data, was downloaded yesterday and specialists will know in the next day or two if the recording contains any valid data.

 

Interviews with both flight crew and cabin crew were also conducted yesterday in Melbourne.

 

Friday's incident has focused attention on the airlines' overseas maintenance regime.

 

In one recent example, a Qantas Boeing 737 VH-TJU was released by Malaysian Airlines and Qantas engineers found 95 defects that were missed in Kuala Lumpur.

 

They included a galley that was so badly installed that a flight attendant suffered an electric shock and posed a serious fire risk.

 

Nice recovery statement. Another knock at MH. And the aircraft was accepted by QF and flew all the way to OZland and thereafter 95 defects surfaced following line operations? Scary QF, scary....

 

Radzi, you too must be flying B737s with 95 defects daily as well eh...and the girls should be geting electric shocks all the time then....

 

Anyway the effects of the undercarriage door not being fully flushed on the B737 will manifest in high cabin noise level especially in the front, not so much at the rear cabin. Aircraft with such problem cannot fly at normal cruising speed as it is limited by gear extension speed.

 

On the B737 Gear extension and gear extended speed are quite different.

[jani 0]

Wow.. Cannot believe the Australians are attacking MH. And it sounds so childish as well.. Trying to make Malaysia sound so lousy.

 

bodohnya..

[MIR 2]

-deleted-

Edited July 30, 2008 by MIR

[Ashmil Abd Ghani 0]

emm that hurt Malaysian heart..Sad to hear they totally blaming on MH workmanship..Just few week ago PM of Australia visit Malaysia and hope the KL - Canberra relation become much better after the meeting..even this issue we say as isolated case, but the Aussie keep underestimate us.. :angry:

[Khaled 2]

They all too much la...

Edited July 30, 2008 by Khaled