Qantas jet lands with gaping hole in fuselage

[FlyBarneyJets]

Dozens of O2 cylinders in the cargo hold? I'd have thought maybe two for flight crew purposes, but dozens?

I'm no -400 flyer, but doesn't PAX O2 come from chemical generators?

 

[CaptJax]

QF CEO: Emergency Likely Beyond Its Control

Qantas CEO: Emergency likely beyond its control


Sunday, July 27, 2008
(07-27) 22:55 PDT SYDNEY, Australia (AP) --
Qantas Airways' chief executive says whatever caused a midair emergency aboard a jetliner carrying 350 passengers last week was more than likely beyond the control of the airline.
Geoff Dixon's comment in a news conference on Monday suggests the cause of the blast that ripped a hole in the fuselage of the passenger jet on Friday was mechanical, not human.
The Boeing 747-400, on its way from London to Melbourne, Australia, made an emergency landing in the Philippines after the incident.
Qantas is inspecting oxygen cylinders on its entire fleet as investigators focus on a missing tank as the suspected cause of a mid-air explosion.

 

[Dieterly]

I'm no -400 flyer, but doesn't PAX O2 come from chemical generators?

No O2 generators on the -400.

 

[Citrus531]

The latest in a spring of incidents for qantas. Just a couple months ago a 400 was on emergency power for an hour on the way to Hong Kong. The birds are old and need to be replaced, hopefully soon!

They can't be that old....I think their 400's are from the mid to late 90's along with those newer 400ER(Longreach) a/c which can't be more than 5-6 years old....did a google and it says the 400 retirements are scheduled to start in 2014.

 

[CaptJax]

O2 Tank Blamed For Jet Blast

Oxygen Tank Blamed for Jet Blast


By ROD McGUIRK, AP


CANBERRA, Australia (July 30) -- An investigator said Wednesday that an oxygen cylinder exploded on Qantas jet that had to make emergency landing last week.
The packed jetliner lost the use of crucial flight instruments after the explosion aboard the aircraft blasted a large hole in its fuselage, the air safety investigator said.
The explosion last Friday during a flight from London to Melbourne forced the pilots of the Boeing 747 to rapidly descend thousands of feet and make an emergency landing in the Philippines. No one was injured in the blast or during the descent.
Investigators have found that the jet's three landing instrument systems and its antiskid system were not working when they arrived in Manila, said Julian Walsh, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's director of aviation safety.
But he told reporters the jumbo jet's main systems, including engines and hydraulics, were functioning normally.
Walsh said the pilots did not use the flight instruments to land the plane. If the pilots were not able to land under so-called visual flight rules, he said, they had other navigation systems that they could have used.
But another bureau investigator, Ian Brokenshire, told The Associated Press later that the failed instruments would have made landing "extremely difficult" if conditions over Manila had been cloudy or foggy.
Walsh did not say what caused the failures.
The explosion sent shrapnel through the floor of the passenger cabin and sheared off a door handle, but there was no risk of the door coming off, authorities said. The shrapnel's trajectory added new details to the frantic moments that followed what investigators suspect was an oxygen tank explosion aboard the jet.
The shrapnel came to rest in the cabin ceiling after it sheared off part of the door handle and knocked it half-way out of position, Walsh said.
But he said "there was never any danger of the door opening" because it is designed never to be opened in flight.
The jumbo jet with 365 people aboard was flying at 29,000 feet when the explosion occurred in the cargo bay, rupturing the fuselage and causing rapid decompression in the cabin.
The Australian bureau, which is investigating the incident with U.S. and Philippine authorities, will release a preliminary report in a month, Walsh said.