'Pungent odour' lands Qantas flight

[Homer]

It must have been one of the curries...

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Emergency vehicles were called onto the tarmac at Sydney Airport this afternoon after reports of smoke in the cabin of a Qantas plane.

A Qantas spokeswoman says the flight from Armidale landed without incident, when the smoke turned out to be a "pungent odour" coming from the plane's galley.

Source: 'Pungent odour' lands Qantas flight - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

[bambbbam2]

Burned the 'Lamb Rogan Josh' ?

 

[Mal]

Armidale - Sydney -- has to be a Dash-8 yes?

They don't have hot meals.

So perhaps an electrical problem with some galley equipment? Left over food from a flight ages ago or a similar food spill?

 

[straitman]

A joke about airline food comes to mind :!:

 

[JohnK]

This must have been the "emergency landing" in SYD that delayed my flight last week.

 

[NM]

This must have been the "emergency landing" in SYD that delayed my flight last week.

I fail to see how a Dash-8 "emergency landing" that was able to clear the runway could realistically be blamed for schedule disruptions across the country . Seems like drawing a very long bow to me.

 

[JohnK]

I fail to see how a Dash-8 "emergency landing" that was able to clear the runway could realistically be blamed for schedule disruptions across the country . Seems like drawing a very long bow to me.

As I have mentioned a number of times QF is using a new excuse everytime there are major delays in their schedules. They must have someone that is writing these excuses for them....

 

[serfty]

... They must have someone that is writing these excuses for them....

Nah, they are already written.

Staff simply roll two dice and look up the canned script indexed by the total of the numbers shown.

Methinx 7 is "... due to the late inbound ..." ..

 

[rwatts]

Yesterday I had delays after boarding two flights - SYD>MEL was "delay receiving the electronic paperwork" then MEL>ADL was "delay receiving the paperwork" followed by "an anomaly in the paperwork".

Both times the door was closed and airbridge disconnected although no pushback. Does this count as departed for on-time statistics with QF ?

Richard.

 

[Evan]

Unless they actually move back i am not sure it does.
But its a standard way to fool the figures, just push back half a meter and wait.
E

 

[JohnK]

I have encountered the push back and then long wait before taxiing more times than I care to remember. What do statistics mean anyway? At least 1 in every 5 flights is more than 15 minutes late. I would love to know just how many flights actually take off on time. And I mean on time not within 15 minutes of scheduled departure....

 

[straitman]

I would love to know just how many flights actually take off on time. And I mean on time not within 15 minutes of scheduled departure....

Where do you draw the line for calling something on time :?: Is one minute, or two minutes, or three minutes acceptable as on time :?:

 

[rwatts]

Where do you draw the line for calling something on time :?: Is one minute, or two minutes, or three minutes acceptable as on time :?:

How about wheels leaving the runway no later than the scheduled minute of departure ?

EG: For a departure scheduled at 1640, I would accept anything before 1641.

Of course my last flight out of SYD involved the long taxi down to 34R while the previous was 16R - so maybe a little unfair on the airlines. Tough.

Richard.

 

[oz_mark]

I have encountered the push back and then long wait before taxiing more times than I care to remember. What do statistics mean anyway? At least 1 in every 5 flights is more than 15 minutes late. I would love to know just how many flights actually take off on time. And I mean on time not within 15 minutes of scheduled departure....

Here is a sample of flights out of Perth yesterday

PER-MEL QF762 Departed PER 11 mins late, arrived MEL 14 minutes early
PER-SYD QF642 Departed PER 10 mins late, arrived SYD 18 minutes early
PER-ADL QF668 Departed PER 8 mins late, arrived ADL 2 minutes early

Are these flights on-time, late or early?

 

[serfty]

From the extended flightstats entry for QF642 yesterday:

• Actual Gate Departure Changed To 12/10/08 10:15 AM
• Actual Runway Departure Changed To 12/10/08 10:20 AM
• Actual Runway Departure Changed From 12/10/08 10:20 AM To 12/10/08 10:26 AM
• Actual Runway Arrival Changed To 12/10/08 03:51 PM
• Actual Gate Arrival Changed To 12/10/08 03:59 PM

Scheduled departure and arrival times were: 10:05 & 16:15.

 

[JohnK]

Where do you draw the line for calling something on time :?: Is one minute, or two minutes, or three minutes acceptable as on time :?:

Pushes back exactly on time and then within a couple of minutes, after final formalities and safety demonstration, starts to taxi to runway and take off. What is the point of having on time performance statistics if you are not going to stick to scheduled departures?

Are these flights on-time, late or early?

Not an easy call. With any flight of that duration the flight time can vary substantially based on the wind direction.

With shorter flights like SYD-BNE vv where the flight time is 65-70 minutes and a scheduled flight duration of 90 minutes the airlines consistently get it wrong. What are the causes of the delays? Too tight a schedule? Tardy passengers? Inadequate ground crew to complete the formalities?

Anyway I am convinced that flights will be consistently late so in my opinion there is no point in publishing on time performance statistics, and then bragging about having 1 in 5 flights over 15 minutes late, as they do not mean anything....

 

[rwatts]

<redacted content>

Interesting... Two different threads now and this user has cut and pasted part of an earlier post by me in the thread as their own.

Meanwhile, I had a short delay yesterday when Qantas seemed to lose an unaccompanied minor - they werent sure if he was on board or not (he wasnt).

Richard.

Richard.

 

[oz_mark]

Interesting... Two different threads now and this user has cut and pasted part of an earlier post by me in the thread as their own.

They put together ten posts so they could then put the link in their posts in (although one post seems to have been deleted).

 

[comint]

Not an easy call.

Yes, easy for me, I call - ONTIME* ARRIVAL, as the only statistic that counts. (And I am only prepared to yield 5 minutes leeway towards its achievement!) [*ontime or earlier is ok]

 

[rwatts]

They put together ten posts so they could then put the link in their posts in (although one post seems to have been deleted).

Ahhh. Sneeky. The links appeared to be spam but I hadnt put two and two together re the post count. Thanks moderators (serfty).

Richard.