more QF drama..

[Montague S]

when it rains...it certainly poors!

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.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24093267-661,00.html

[Lachlan H]

Just saw that on google news.....thought it was the QF30 incident, but opened it and it was diff.

So was it a 763 as the pic states or a 738 as the article says??

[Montague S]

So was it a 763 as the pic states or a 738 as the article says??

read the article very closely..it says usually operates so I'd assume that the offending aircraft is the one in the photo.

if its the undercarriage doors as suggested then it has to be a 767... ;)

[Lachlan H]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/28/2317041.htm?section=australia

Mechanical failure forces Qantas flight back to Adelaide

Posted 2 hours 2 minutes ago
Updated 1 hour 49 minutes ago
More concerns for Qantas.

Passengers on board a Melbourne-bound Qantas flight says the aircraft had to return to Adelaide Airport tonight because of a mechanical problem.

Passenger Rocco Russo says he heard a rattling noise about 10 minutes after take-off.

He says the pilot told passengers there was a problem with a door closing above the plane's wheel.

"He then continued to fly and said that he was going to contact the engineers and then a few minutes after that came back on and said the engineers had gotten back to him and the advice was to return to Adelaide," he said.

Qantas is yet to comment.

[Andrew M]

Yep it's time to play "beat up Qantas"

This "drama" was nothing at all to be concerned about

Expect no less from the media

[Stuart Trevena]

Hi All,

It was a 763, as Adelaide normally has only 734's & 738's of Qantas overnighting.

The 767 is in Gate 19 I think at the moment.

Stuart

[Rhys Xanthis]

I hope this doesnt get blown out of proportion, but i think we all know it will:(....wow a landing gear door didnt shut, watch the media wheel out the circus...

[Sarah C]

I hope this doesnt get blown out of proportion, but i think we all know it will:(....wow a landing gear door didnt shut, watch the media wheel out the circus...

And there was a big media coverage this morning. Some of the interviewed passengers were laughable to be honest. A landing gear not shutting doesn't mean the plane is going down - the captain made a decision to return, standard procedure.

[David C]

Hi All,

It was a 763, as Adelaide normally has only 734's & 738's of Qantas overnighting.



Stuart


In true Ch 7 tradition , they are showing the aircraft as 737 VH-TJR "Cockateil " .. So what is the true identity ??

Dave C

[Philip Argy]

If newspaper reports are accurate (which I know is rare) I think the captain could have chosen his words better. We know what a landing gear door is but telling pax that "a door is open above the wheels" doesn't convey the innocuous nature of the problem to lay pax and sounds like it did the opposite for some, no matter how silly we think the pax were. Words like "wheel cover" or something come to mind as better terms to convey that it's no big deal.

I think a case can be made for educating crew on terminology to use with lay passengers to convey what is going on in a way that doesn't alarm them or leave ambiguous the seriousness of the issue. Especailly when media interview pax and report every word that is said.

[Stephen Brown]

[rant mode=1]

I honestly think they should check the IQ's of passengers now before you can sell them a ticket. If your a dolt imbecile who's going to think the plane is going to fall out of the sky at the slightest problem, then you don't belong on a plane. You don't belong outside your house.....

Yet they will willingly get in a car, drive at 100kmh on roads that are dubious at best, straight at a car also doing 100kmh, which may be driven by a fatigued, tired driver, someone who is drunk, or someone who is speeding his head off on some chemical cocktail thats kept them up for the past three days. Not to mention that the driver of the on coming car could only be 17 and out to prove some sort of point to his mates. And with the tremendous amount of driver training that happens these days....

When they get to the end of their journey in the car they don't get out, go straight to the nearest media outlet and say what a horrific experience it was and they all thought they were going to die ecetera, ecetera, ad infinitum eccetera.........

Let the cull begin

[rant mode=0]

[Philip Argy]

I think you were more on the money with this previous contribution, Stephen: http://yssyforum.net/board/showpost.php?p=8246&postcount=5
;)

[Andrew McLaughlin]

If newspaper reports are accurate (which I know is rare) I think the captain could have chosen his words better. We know what a landing gear door is but telling pax that "a door is open above the wheels" doesn't convey the innocuous nature of the problem to lay pax and sounds like it did the opposite for some, no matter how silly we think the pax were. Words like "wheel cover" or something come to mind as better terms to convey that it's no big deal.

I think a case can be made for educating crew on terminology to use with lay passengers to convey what is going on in a way that doesn't alarm them or leave ambiguous the seriousness of the issue. Especailly when media interview pax and report every word that is said.

I'd suggest the captain was probably just a tad busy going through various checklists to worry about absolute terminologies. Plus, I wouldn't count on the passenger's recount of what was said as absolute gospel either.

[Adam P.]

educating crew on terminology to use with lay passengers

Howabout "I'll fly the aeroplane, you just sit there and keep quiet"?

[Robert Zweck]

It was VH-OGK...earlier in the day it flew MEL-ADL-DRW and some of you may have seen some 0900 hrs TV footage of VH-OGK at the Adelaide terminal as part of a spiel about an unusually cold overnight in Adelaide ( 0.7 degrees )

3 early morning 0600 departures ( QF 670, 732 and 593 ) were delayed due to ice on the wings of the overnighting aircraft

I was under the localiser inside MBY as VH-OGK returned from Darwin ( QF 757) at 1650, all the gear doors were OK.

Little did I realise the fuss that would result from its next sector to MEL...a bit of airframe buffet from improper gear door fit.

Certainly not an emergency

I reckon VH-OGK had had a repaint....looked nice and shiny

[Rhys Xanthis]

Howabout "I'll fly the aeroplane, you just sit there and keep quiet"?

I agree with you.

[Steve S... 2]

Looks like the "K" rego's are jinxed at the moment. :eek:

It used to always be "H" aircraft for some reason that got into trouble.

[Ash W]

Sky news in the UK were true to form, reporting that a door had opened mid flight, making it sound like a passenger doort. At least this time they got the name right, when reporting the 747 problem they were calling the airline Quantas.

[Peter JB]

Perhaps pilots can adopt the following boarding announcements:

"Get in, sit down, shut up and hang on" :eek: :D

[Darren Butterworth]

Fox and Friends (US morning show) on the Fox News Channel carried this story last night as well and for three lead ins to commercial breaks before the story was shown the commentators were throwing lines out like "what going wrong with Qantas..." etc

What a beat up.

[Montague S]

doesn't get much better...

A BRISBANE-bound Qantas aircraft has run into mechanical problems - the third incident the airline has experienced in just over three days.
The Boeing 737 flying from Sydney with 155 passengers was towed from the runway after a hydraulics failure during Sunday night's landing.

A back-up system cut in but the plane was pulled to the terminal as a precautionary measure.
One engineering source said a "large pipe - a kind of artery" failed on the primary system.

A Qantas spokesman confirmed the incident on flight QF548, aboard a 737-800 which is a relatively new plane.

A passenger said cabin crew had confided they did not feel as safe working for the airline because they believed maintenance was being done offshore or parts were not changed as frequently as they should.

"I was told that too often too many little things were going wrong and planes were an accident just waiting to happen," the passenger said.

A retired engineer told The Courier-Mail too many "pencil inspections" were occurring with Qantas planes.

"It involves someone ticking off a document to say something has been done when it has not," he said.

After the Brisbane incident, staff were told not to speak out because of Friday's adverse publicity when a jumbo jet made an emergency landing in Manilla with part of the fuselage blown away.

Passengers were starved of oxygen for several minutes after supplies were lost.

Both Qantas and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau yesterday refused to comment on claims by an aircraft engineer that oxygen was not available to the 346 passengers.

The engineer, who cannot be identified, said the three intact passenger supply cylinders vented their contents into the atmosphere after a regulator blew off the top of a fourth tank.

Passengers said several children wearing gas masks turned blue during the 10 minutes it took the plane to descend from 29,000 feet to a safe breathing level of 14,000 feet.

Blue skin is a strong indicator of lack of oxygen in the blood.

On Monday night, a Melbourne-bound Qantas plane had to return to Adelaide because doors covering the nose wheel bay did not close properly after take-off.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24100230-5001021,00.html

[Adrian B]

and yet another 'issue' as stated in th Herald Sun

Qantas jet 'flew low on fuel' over Victoria (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24099216-662,00.html)

Quote


QANTAS'S nightmare has worsened with news that a 737 appeared to be low on fuel before the pilot realised reserve fuel pump switches were off.

The bungle, which occurred on August 11 when the airliner was en route from Perth to Sydney, saw the Australian Transport Safety Bureau classify the fuel scare as a "serious incident", which remains under investigation.

The news is yet another embarrassment for Qantas after a jumbo had to make an emergency landing in Manila on Friday when a gaping hole was ripped in the fuselage.

And on Monday, a 767 flying to Melbourne had to return to Adelaide after a landing gear door had malfunctioned.

An October 11 ATSB report on the fuel bungle stated: "The main fuel tanks were low on fuel and the investigation estimated there was about 100kg in each.

"The pilot in command observed the centre tank fuel pump switches on the forward overhead panel were selected to the 'off' position and he immediately selected them to the 'on' position."

The centre fuel tank held a reserve of 4700kg.

The crew discussed the problem and confirmed the reserves would get the aircraft safely to Sydney.

The 737-476, able to carry up to 150 passengers, was 50km northwest of Swan Hill - almost three hours into its flight - when the error was identified.

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




The rest of the article refers to previously mentioned posts.

[Montague S]

and yet another 'issue' as stated in th Herald Sun

Qantas jet 'flew low on fuel' over Victoria (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24099216-662,00.html)

Quote


QANTAS'S nightmare has worsened with news that a 737 appeared to be low on fuel before the pilot realised reserve fuel pump switches were off.

The bungle, which occurred on August 11 when the airliner was en route from Perth to Sydney, saw the Australian Transport Safety Bureau classify the fuel scare as a "serious incident", which remains under investigation.

The news is yet another embarrassment for Qantas after a jumbo had to make an emergency landing in Manila on Friday when a gaping hole was ripped in the fuselage.

And on Monday, a 767 flying to Melbourne had to return to Adelaide after a landing gear door had malfunctioned.

An October 11 ATSB report on the fuel bungle stated: "The main fuel tanks were low on fuel and the investigation estimated there was about 100kg in each.

"The pilot in command observed the centre tank fuel pump switches on the forward overhead panel were selected to the 'off' position and he immediately selected them to the 'on' position."

The centre fuel tank held a reserve of 4700kg.

The crew discussed the problem and confirmed the reserves would get the aircraft safely to Sydney.

The 737-476, able to carry up to 150 passengers, was 50km northwest of Swan Hill - almost three hours into its flight - when the error was identified.

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




The rest of the article refers to previously mentioned posts.

pretty sure that's from last year, Adrian.

[Adrian B]

Correct Monty as stated in the article.

Interesting how it comes out in the press now.........

Wonder if we can do search of all of all IP addresses currently searching the ATSB websites for Qantas issues. Top 20 would be media?????

Perhaps we will see something on the Mt Erebus disaster? The only link being that QF flyer over Antarctica then with a follow on article about the Manila incident., cant forget Bangkok as well.....:confused::(

[Stephen Brown]

I'd hate to see what would happen in the media if they actually grabbed a scanner and sat out beside the runway for a day..there would be pandemonium.

The other week while at the beach, saw a regional carrier have nose wheel troubles on final and had to do a go around and circuits over the sea the confirm gear operation. You all know the list, go-arounds, delays, radio misundertandings..

It would be enough to fill the first five pages of the Daily Terrorgraph for weeks, and Piers Akerman would still find a way to blame the labour party!!

[Montague S]

It would be enough to fill the first five pages of the Daily Terrorgraph for weeks, and Piers Akerman would still find a way to blame the labour party!!

and the hyprocritical part of it all is that he'd be doing it on ABC's Insiders show on a Sunday morning... ;)

[Philip Argy]

Fox and Friends (US morning show) on the Fox News Channel carried this story last night as well and for three lead ins to commercial breaks before the story was shown the commentators were throwing lines out like "what going wrong with Qantas..." etc

What a beat up.

I saw that too, and they also interviewed a "former NTSB investigator" who obviously confused the CVR and the FDR when he stated that the latter had no data pertaining to the incident! At least he confirmed that OJK was not one of the 86 aircraft that the FAA had required to be inspected for defective oxygen cylinders.

[David N]

Yep it's time to play "beat up Qantas"

This "drama" was nothing at all to be concerned about

Expect no less from the media

On Ch 10 Melbourne News the other night with the -OJK incident, they said there source was an aviation website.

I think if anyone of us were onboard these aircraft, the media would not want to hear there was nothing to worry about and no panic, just a routine landing.

I sent a text to Weekend Sunrise CH 7, when they said -OJK was the aircraft that took the Pope home.. because it had Lonreach on it. :mad:

They corrected themselves at the next news break. :D

Regards
David

[Anthony J]

I think a case can be made for educating crew on terminology to use with lay passengers to convey what is going on in a way that doesn't alarm them or leave ambiguous the seriousness of the issue. Especailly when media interview pax and report every word that is said.
Philip, Qantas crews, particularly Captains, are well trained in use of the correct terminology during PAs. We are trained to be concise and honest without being patronising or fearful. As others have said priority is still given to keeping the aircraft upright so on occasion the PAs do not have the 'touchy feely this is your Captain speaking' vibe.
I'm suprised you didn't think that Qantas would supply that training to their crews!

[Philip Argy]

I'm confident that you all use correct terminology, Anthony - I was suggesting that occasionally a little more empathy could be demonstrated, even when under pressure.

Use the Qantas nervous flyers' group (or whatever those people might be called) as your simulator pax and test their reactions to different ways of saying the same thing.

And, I hasten to add, I wasn't being critical - just sharing some thoughts.

[Josh F]

I was suggesting that occasionally a little more empathy coud be demonstrated, even when under pressure.

:confused: