QF32 Sunday11/7/10

[jakob]

Hi All,

Just wanted to ask if anyone has any info with regards Qf32 LHR-SIN on Sunday 11th July.

I understand this in an A380 service and as far as I know it turned back approx 2hrs in to flight and is currently on the tarmac at LHR. Qantas.com listing an approx 20hr delay with scheduled arrival now 0445hrs TUESDAY at SIN.

My interest is that my sister-in-law is on the flight (with my nieces), and everyone is ok. but i've just been getting 2nd hand info from my brother (says something fell off so they had to return to LHR), so just wondering if any of the 'in the know' ppl that frequent this forum know what may have happened....

i know turn arounds are not rare (not super common either AFAIK) but this one has more interest than usual for me, also its a Qantas flight so not long till its national news......(or no news)...

thanks,

jakob.

 

[squealy morris]

My husband sent several text messages the last one saying they were awaiting a qantas rep to come aboard as they were not allowed off the flight with no AC very hot. I have not for about 3 hours and wonder if they are being transferred to the flight which leaves heathrow at 9.30pm this evening, in about 40 minutes? My husband was trying to get booked onto a Singapore airlines flight but as he was being held on the QA 32 with no hope of getting off, this seemed a bit futile.

I would appreciate any news as he has now run out of charge on his mobile phone and no word for hours.

 

[squealy morris]

At 8.30pm uk time they were all kicked off the flight and are waiting for buses to get to a hotel near the airport but do not know which one or when the bus is coming. Their flight tomorrow is due to land at 5am singapore time TUESDAY.

Hope this helps.

Squealy

 

[jakob]

AFAIK one of the reasons for not leaving today is crew hours. I imagine it would be difficult to accomodate more than a small % on the other flights unless there were unusually light loads....

anyways, any info as to what actually happened would be appreciated,

thanks,

jakob.

 

[MarcB]

Hi All

Thought you might all like an update on this post - I was onboard this flight. What has been said in the post is pretty much how things played out. Apparently there was a loud bang on take-off which was eventually attributed to a lost hatch (cosmetic only) covering the waste outlet on the plane. We first knew something was wrong about 2 hours into the flight as we passed over Prague with the Captain announcing we would turn back to LHR out of caution.

Initially they indicated the problem would be fixed and then we'd have another crack at making it to SIN, but crew hours were cited as the reason for eventually being overnighted in London. Qantas were very professional in the handling of the accomodations etc, although it was a little concerning that when we reboarded the next day, I still had no confirmation as to what connection I would get out of SIN to BNE. I should note that loads out of LHR and SIN are very high at the moment - we couldn't even get flights via the US! When we were standing at the check-in after our return to LHR trying to arrange new flights, about 20 people were denied boarding on QF10 that night due to overbooking!

As an aside, this was the second attempt at getting home for me, having missed my connection on QF10 on Saturday night due to a delay out of BCN. So I was pretty over it by this stage.

In the end, we left LHR about 12pm on Sunday (some 24 hours late) arriving in SIN about 6.50am on Tuesday morning. Qantas met me at the gate in SIN and put me in the tranisit hotel for the day while they sorted out our connection - which was eventually on QF52 that night.

 

[jakob]

Hey,

thanks for the update with your experience. Its pretty similar to my SIL who has now arrived in Perth with her two daughters (2 and 6yrs). The only difference was in their transit from SIN to Perth (they don't have status)..... They were advised to visit transit desk, where they were told that the flight to perth (72) would not accomodate them and that they would continue on QF32D to SYD, unfortunately they were not seated together from SIN-SYD (which seems a bit strange given their ages) but of course the crew (and friendly passengers) on board soon fixed that. On arrival in SYD the final flight to PER had been held back to accomodate them so they arrived shortly after midnight on Wednesday morning!!

They were generally happy with the way it was all handled by Qantas (except the extra transit and not being sat together).

jakob

 

[MarcB]

Hey,

thanks for the update with your experience. Its pretty similar to my SIL who has now arrived in Perth with her two daughters (2 and 6yrs). The only difference was in their transit from SIN to Perth (they don't have status)..... They were advised to visit transit desk, where they were told that the flight to perth (72) would not accomodate them and that they would continue on QF32D to SYD, unfortunately they were not seated together from SIN-SYD (which seems a bit strange given their ages) but of course the crew (and friendly passengers) on board soon fixed that. On arrival in SYD the final flight to PER had been held back to accomodate them so they arrived shortly after midnight on Wednesday morning!!

They were generally happy with the way it was all handled by Qantas (except the extra transit and not being sat together).

jakob

Interesting that you note they were not met at the gate. When I came off the plane, there were only about 5 or 6 people's names being held up and I did wonder whether higher status pax were being treated better than non-status pax. I guess I now know the answer to that question!

 

[jb747]

I flew the same aircraft yesterday. The problem was that the hatch that covers the toilet drain had come adrift and was flapping in the breeze. I'm told that it was quite loud if you happened to be near it. Continuing the flight would mean a possibility of the hatch departing the aircraft. Whilst it would most likely do so without any repercussions, you never really know just what is under you, nor if the airflow will cause it to hit the aircraft after it comes loose. The hatch was removed in London....it is cosmetic only.

But...the normal tour of duty on a London Singapore service is in the order of 15:00 hours, with a max following something unplanned of 20 hours (I've done 20 hours, believe me, you don't want a pilot who has been at work that long). So, assuming the aircraft departed initially more or less on time, by the time it got back to London, then the crew would already have burnt up about 5 hours of that duty. Say 13:30 flight time, plus the time already used, means 18:30 already accounted for...the repair has to be complete and the aircraft off chocks in 90 minutes. I don't know the exact timings of the day, but that would be approximately correct. If you disembark, and one passenger is a bit late back and takes you out to 91 minutes, then that's the end of the flight. The would be real hope that an engineering solution (i.e. remove the door, and get approval from Airbus) would be forthcoming well within that time, so keeping the pax on board makes sense.

Next problem...London is a slot limited airport, and it is common for slots to be a very long time after your desired push back. Missed my push back time by 10 minutes the other day, and the next slot was an hour away. It would be quite possible to have the aircraft all set to go again, and simply end up with a slot time that took you outside of 20 hours. You cannot depart in those circumstances.

Next...ok, the crew are going to run out of hours, so what can you do. Well, there are two ways to attack that. Firstly, and most obvious, replace the crew. Cabin crew probably won't be too hard to find, but there will only be one group of pilots who could possibly be available. They are not on standby, but are stood down, so they could be anywhere. By now, it would be early evening, so I'd hazard a pretty good guess at where they could be found. No use anyway.

Alternative.... Depart the aircraft, with a plan to land elsewhere, and get a new crew there. Works well out of LA, where you could plan on going to Brisbane, or even NZ, and the company might have some chance of having a replacement crew in place. Out of London to Singapore...well that just won't work.

 

[jakob]

Hi,

Thanks for that insight as to how it is all worked out. Seems like it was always going to be a stretch with those approximate timings, and with how LHR is, but i'm sure they kept everyone on initally to give it a go.

jakob