QF30 Emergency Landing in MNL after door "Popped"

[pauly7]

Didn't the latest ad campaign ("The World's Most Experienced Airline") touch on the safety bit? Something about QF's technical excellence.

Correct, but citing operational excellence as a bullet point (which is completely up to intepretation: on time performance??) is not in the same as 'marketing heavily on safety'.

AFAIK no airline does market themselves highly on safety (happy to be shown otherwise) and if they do, well its a high-risk strategy.

 

[SeaWolf]

Rubbish!!

Sorry but that is blatently untrue, QF does not market themselves heavily, come to mind - even at all on safety.

Simmer down, a minor error isn't the end of the world. However, I don't believe I'm in error here.
Referring to QF's 2003 newspaper marketing campaign they used the tagline, "Because thousands of hours training means you’re in safe hands".
Qantas launches image builder
Also, the promo materiel they supply to travel agents pushes safety, stating, "Qantas is one of Australia's leading brands, with a proud history of reliability, safety, engineering excellence and customer service."
Qantas - A Brief History - Webjet.com.au
I found both of those links with just a few seconds of Google searching. I guess it depends on the interpretation of the individual as to whether they see this as marketing to safety perceptions or not, but it seems to me that it is. I would certainly agree though that it is a high risk strategy.

 

[Mal]

News Ltd really has the knives out for Qantas. Their latest 'revelations':

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 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.

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.

New Qantas scare as mechanical fault hits Brisbane jet | The Courier-Mail

 

[Mal]

And The Herald Sun has made the following claims:
Qantas flight low on fuel, reserves switched off | Herald Sun

QANTAS'S nightmare has worsened with news that investigators found a 737 flying over Victoria 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.

Yep - when you can't find anything else to scare people with, find a 9 month old "preliminary" ATSB investigation report to report on.
200705093
Release Date: 11 October 2007

 

[oz_mark]

And The Herald Sun has made the following claims:
Qantas flight low on fuel, reserves switched off | Herald Sun


Yep - when you can't find anything else to scare people with, find a 9 month old "preliminary" ATSB investigation report to report on.
200705093
Release Date: 11 October 2007

Sounds like journo's are dredging through everything in their hunts for stories.

 

[needaholiday]

Exploding oxygen tank 'opened emergency door'

In the Brisbane Times

A piece of an exploding oxygen tank is believed to have pushed the handle of an emergency door into the opening position, after smashing through the floor on a Qantas flight from Hong Kong.
Last Friday a Qantas international jet was forced to make an emergency landing at Manila after a mid-air explosion tore a hole in the plane's fuselage.
Passengers were not in danger of the doors opening because they are designed so they cannot be opened mid-flight, The Australian reports today.
But after examining photographs, industry observers were surprised the door was pushed into the opening position.
"It's an incredibly rare event for the oxygen tank to explode and for it to hit the door handle and rotate it open is just eye-watering," a source told The Australian.
The aircraft's controls were not affected but some computer functions and electrics were disrupted, including three of the plane's supposedly independent landing systems.
Sources said the emergency descent from 29,000 feet to 10,000 feet took about four minutes.
AAP

Exploding oxygen tank 'opened emergency door' - National - BrisbaneTimes


Wonder whether this link is the source mentioned (from pprune) for some of the material in their article.

 

[serfty]

There was a post on FT indicating the door handles are automatically locked by a pressure sensor; it would surprise me if a door was indeed unlocked as direct/immediate result of such an event.

Note that this 'locking' may not work once pressures were equalized at 10000ft.

... As far as people open the door when the aircraft is pressurized, it simply ain't gonna happen. I'll give you an example of the 727. On the ground once everything is up and running a switch is flipped to go to normal pressurization. That gives you a 0.125 PSID on the ground. Now that puts 0.125 psi on the door. The door is somewhere is the neighborhood of 36x96 and that yields about 432 lbs of pressure on that door. Go ahead, try to open it. Not to mention the door handles have a pressure sensor that lock the handle into positition.

 

[Evan]

From ATSB media relase about the door....

Door
The ATSB can confirm that it appears that part of an oxygen cylinder and valve entered the passenger cabin and impacted the number 2 right door frame handle, thereby moving the handle part way towards the open position. However, the door handle mechanism has been sheared as it is designed to do if an attempt is made to open the door in flight, so the position of the door handle is not representative of the position of the door lock mechanism or the security of the door. The investigation team have confirmed that the door latches were still engaged. Additionally the door is of the plug-type that first needs to be pulled into the cabin, rotated 90 degrees then pushed out to open. So there was never any danger of the door opening.

So to answer serfty it would appear your 100% correct.
E

 

[jasonja3]

Latest SMH ..."Qantas pilot landed without instruments"

Aparently the three ILS (instrument landing systems)were out, and he landed on visuals. Any idea's from the well informed or experienced on exactly what these systems are and what role they play?

 

[Evan]

A localiser (lateral guidance) and glidescope or glide path indicator + a DME or distance measureing.

But nothing at all stopping you from landing using your normal alimeter and airspeed indicators etc and doing a "visual" approach.
This is what you would do in a light plane to land most of the time.

The pilot had instruments according to the ATSB. just not the ILS instruments. In clear weather not any big deal at all really. In fog etc they would need to rely on the air traffic controllers to help them get close using radar until they can see the runway lights.

E

 

[straitman]

jasonja3,

ILS (Instrument landing System) is a precision instrument approach that brings the aircraft down on runway centre line to approx 200 ft AGL and 1 mile from the threshold of the runway.

The ILS can either be flown by hand or automatically (as is normal) by the aircraft flight director with the pilot monitoring and taking over for the actual landing.

As you can see from the articles that a/c such as the 747 have several independent systems for each of the aids that they use.

 

[medhead]

Simmer down, a minor error isn't the end of the world. However, I don't believe I'm in error here.
Referring to QF's 2003 newspaper marketing campaign they used the tagline, "Because thousands of hours training means you’re in safe hands".
Qantas launches image builder

Well that tagline is about training not safety. "We do lots of training that's why you can fell safe flying with us" as opposed to "We're safe so fly with us"

Also, the promo materiel they supply to travel agents pushes safety, stating, "Qantas is one of Australia's leading brands, with a proud history of reliability, safety, engineering excellence and customer service."
Qantas - A Brief History - Webjet.com.au

This is about track record not heavily about safety. It's saying "you can feeling safe because of our track record" not "we're safe so fly with us. Also is not heavily about safety. Safety is just one of 4 things mentioned and it is not linked to aircraft safety. It might refer to workplace injurys for all we know.

Anyway, I reckon it's a higher risk stategery marketing themselves on customer service. One check-in chick was extremely rude to my dad and I 10 years ago and I'm still fuming about it. It wipes out any good experience I've had since.

 

[drron]

Apparently these are some of the pictures taken in the investigation of QF30
Cairns.com.au - Qantas blast

 

[oz_mark]

Apparently these are some of the pictures taken in the investigation of QF30
Cairns.com.au - Qantas blast

Yep, those photo's have been doing the rounds. Surprised a paper has only just got to them

 

[Flying Fox]

Apparently these are some of the pictures taken in the investigation of QF30
Cairns.com.au - Qantas blast

Thanks for sharing. I haven't seen those pics until now.

 

[JohnK]

Glad that everyone is OK.This is one type of incident that I do not want to experience first hand.

 

[Platy]

Some actual UK based passengers from the flight are staying locally and have shared their experiences at our local. They claim that the pilot advised they may have to ditch the aircraft, but would attempt to reach MNL. People were genuinely very scared.

 

[simongr]

That's the first time that the seriousness of the incident has been mentioned.

 

[oz_mark]

Some actual UK based passengers from the flight are staying locally and have shared their experiences at our local. They claim that the pilot advised they may have to ditch the aircraft, but would attempt to reach MNL. People were genuinely very scared.

Given that the captain did not really know what he was dealing with, then I would think that a ditch would have to be considered.

 

[straitman]

That's the first time that the seriousness of the incident has been mentioned.

From a pilot perspective an explosive decompression at 30,000 ft is always extremely serious. :shock:

The three initial actions for the pilots' would be to:

1. Keep the aircraft the right way up and under control, (ie fly the aircraft)
2. Don oxygen masks and
3. Get to 10,000ft or below ASAP.

Then they worry about the rest :!: