Qantas plane makes emergency landing after fuselage rupture

A Qantas 747 has made an emergency landing in the Philippines capital Manila because of a large rupture in the plane's fuselage.

The flight with 365 people on board was flying from London to Melbourne, via Hong Kong when it was forced to land. None of the passengers have been seriously injured.

Less than two hours after flight QF 30 left Hong Kong this morning, the pilot sought an emergency landing at Ninoy Aquino International Airport after reporting a hole in the plane's cargo section near the right wing.

-----------------

I did not curse the airline with my cartoon. did I? See at top. 

Safety body releases details on Qantas cylinder explosion

Air safety investigators have released a preliminary report into the mid-air emergency in which an exploding oxygen tank punched a hole in a Qantas jet last month.

The Boeing 747-400, which was en route from Hong Kong to Melbourne, was forced to land in Manila after the explosion tore a hole in its fuselage.

The report by the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau (ATSB) contains a detailed account of how the passenger oxygen cylinder - one of seven carried on the flight - failed and then exploded in the aircraft hold.

It says the cylinder ruptured the fuselage, punctured the cabin floor and entered the cabin before falling to the cabin floor and falling out of the aircraft through the ruptured fuselage.

------------------------

Gus: I met someone once — in his seventies, who, although very healthy, was a bit green around the gills due to turbulence or whatever with the food or the stuffy air... One hostess offered him a bit of oxygen to "help" and the fellow did not refuse... In Melbourne I think, or wherever, he was refused admission on his connecting flight unless he had a doctor's certificate to prove he "did not need oxygen" to fly on... Finding a doctor who could provide the said certificate at 6 am near the airport proved to be rather difficult... The moral of the story is do not accept the "oxygen" as a buzz for fun unless you really need it... Drink plenty of fluid in the form of vino if you must indulge into sumpthin' distracting...

Qantas to offer only canned net content

Asher Moses
September 17, 2008 - 11:20AM

Qantas has shelved plans to offer live internet access on its A380 planes from next month as American Airlines comes under fire from customers and flight attendants for allowing passengers to surf porn websites.

Qantas will instead offer only a limited selection of what it calls "cached internet content" and access to web-based email and chat services.

A Qantas spokeswoman said the internet plans had been paired back due to "logistical and regulatory issues" encountered by its connectivity provider, OnAir. The airline said the full internet service was now scheduled to be available "later in 2009".

------------------

"Thank you for choosing to fly with Morality Airline."

Air safety investigators say there was an "irregularity" in the on-board computer equipment of a Qantas plane involved in a mid-air incident between Singapore and Perth.

The Airbus A330-300, with 303 passengers and a crew of 10, struck what the airline described as a "sudden change in altitude" north of its destination yesterday.

The plane landed at Learmonth, about 40 kilometres from Exmouth, without any further incidents.

------------------------

Learmonth is half a dedicated modern military airport (now F-111?), half a civilian airport. It's hot and dry in October/November. Possible the only airport for miles with a strip long enough to even take an airbus 380. If I remember well, when I flew there, quite a few years back, with some great friends in a small plane, the refueller had to come from Exmouth ... it could have been a Sunday... The scenery on the other side of the water, across the gulf, is mind-blowing... naturally swirled salt pans, twisting rivers of dark red iron ore, black mangroves, shallow transparent turquoise sea, a sky bluer than blue — a large forbidding country where we thought crocs would roam — all on the edge of the driest yellow, orange and red hottest desert... Magnificent.

May the Qantas problems stop now....

see toon at top....

Air safety investigators say they will look into claims signals from a naval communications base near Exmouth in Western Australia's north may have caused last week's Qantas mid-air emergency.

Early last week a Qantas Airbus travelling from Singapore to Perth was forced to land near the town after nosediving hundreds of feet in seconds, injuring about 70 people.

A preliminary investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) found a computer fault caused the aircraft to nosedive twice.

The ATSB says it will examine whether signals from the communications base could have sparked the glitch.

The communications base was originally used by the US Navy.

---------------------

As it emerges that there has been reported other "computer glitches" of the same kind in the same air space, one can wonder... Most aircraft computers and instruments are protected from electromagnetic interference, especially from storms and lightning (which can destroy the instrumentation despite, but rarely do), but are they protected from some very specific long wave radio frequencies? The base has an array of 13 receiving/transmitting antennas about 400 metres high each, so who knows... Question is worrth asking...

We'll never know what it was like to be aboard Air France Flight 447 as it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on May 31, apparently killing all 228 aboard. For now, the closest we may get is listening to the passengers on a similar Airbus 330 jet whose flight computer put it into an uncommanded dive over northwestern Australia last October.

...

The Australians' March report concluded that the October dive was due to a series of events that, when combined, was "close to the worst possible scenario that could arise from the design limitation in the AOA processing algorithm." Airbus also told investigators that this particular mathematical formula for flying the plane is found only on its A330 and A340 models. "Different algorithms were in use on other Airbus types, which were reported to be more robust to AOA spikes," the report said. "The manufacturer advised that AOA spikes matching the above scenario would not have caused a pitch-down event on Airbus aircraft other than an A330 or A340."

-------------------

read more at Time magazine and see stories above this one, including toon at top.