Qantas 747 turns back to Sydney an hour into flight after cockpit fills with smoke

Qantas 747 turns back to Sydney an hour into flight after cockpit fills with smoke

www.dailymail.co.uk

Qantas hit more trouble this morning when one of its Boeing 747s was forced to turn back after the cockpit filled with smoke.

Pilots on the flight from Sydney to Buenos Aires were forced to don oxygen masks and dump fuel over the Pacific ocean before making a 'priority landing' two hours after takeoff.

An electrical fault in an instrument panel is believed to have caused the emergency, which is the latest in a string of problems for the airline since an engine explosion

(visit the link for the full news article)

Is it me or is there something happening nearly every day this last few weeks to commercial aircraft.

Engines exploding, cockpits on fire, fuel leaks etc and the list goes on.

It is mainly Quantas but others have been affected too!

Are the MSM keeping quiet about other airlines having the same problems?

Something is up here because normally this sort of thing only happens like once a year!

Your thoughts would be appreciated and any ideas on why this is going on so much NOW.

I am not flying anywhere for a while until this calms down, hopefully?

www.dailymail.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Just another quick question, what happens to the thousands of gallons of fuel when they Jettison / Dump it before landing?

Does somebody driving along in their car suddenly get "soaked"?

Originally posted by minkey53
Just another quick question, what happens to the thousands of gallons of fuel when they Jettison / Dump it before landing?

Does somebody driving along in their car suddenly get "soaked"?

It evaporates long before it hits the ground. And standard procedure is to dump over the ocean when possible. Jet fuel is basically kerosene so it evaporates pretty quickly.

Originally posted by minkey53
Something is up here because normally this sort of thing only happens like once a year!

Your thoughts would be appreciated and any ideas on why this is going on so much NOW.

I don't think that's right, do you have a source for that once a year figure? This was an incident with no fatalaties.

Here's a graph of fatalities by year for the USA and it's pretty inconsistent:

www.pbs.org...

You almost have to look at data over the course over a decade to smooth out the spikes that erratic to see if airline safety is getting better or worse.

Qantas has a pretty good reputation, I would still fly on them, they still haven't had any fatalities, have they? (Though I'd probably avoid that Airbus A380 specifically until they get the bugs worked out of that particular engine, but the 747 is a proven aircraft).

Regarding Fuel Dumps, here's what Lufthansa says about them:

presse.lufthansa.com...

In the event of a fuel dump, special airspace is assigned to the aircraft, if possible above uninhabited or thinly populated areas. Fuel is usually dumped at altitudes of 4–8 kilometers. A minimum altitude of 1,500 meters and a minimum speed of 500 km/h are required. The aircraft may not fly a fully closed circle. The dumped kerosene forms a fine mist in the turbulence behind the aircraft. Despite the use of highly sensitive methods of analysis, no contamination has been determined so far in plant or soil samples after fuel dumps.

I think they also dump over the ocean if it's a coastal airport landing.

Yes, sometimes it is odd, how similar incidents come in series.

There are strict rules for the so called "fuel dumping", but since this usually happens in case of an emergency, we can wonder, if it is always possible to follow these rules.
Here in Germany the plane should fly over a region with no buildings, at least 1500 meter over the ground, usually higher.
I found a formular that said, if there is no wind at all and the ground temperature is about 15° C, then only 8% of the fuel reach the ground. This would be equivalent to a jigger of fuel on 1000 square meter.

So nobody would get soaked.

Warning Alert!
Pure speculation following...

Maybe some group is trying to get QANTAS to do something it doesn;t want to?
I wonder if there is any financial or company structure/stock market etc related goings on at the moment?

THen again, it could all be bad damn luck and timing.
By that I mean it could just be a string of events that has lead to these situations. They probably happen every other day, but it may just be that not everyday they coincide with other ordinary day to day factors, and cause incidents like the sort we are seeing.

reply to post by minkey53


When the Airbus incident occurred, there was much chatter about Rolls Royce being at fault due to the fact that the engine exploded. While that concern may still be valid, this current speight of faults and failiures at Qantas points to deeper problems than even detonating engines.
When an aircraft prepares to take off, a check list of precautions, saftey measures, tests and box ticking happens, in order to prevent a mid air catastrophy , and the deaths of passengers and crew. Of course , being in control of tonne after tonne of metal and flammable liquid fuel is a responsibility that pilots , ground crew, and air traffic controlers take great care and pride in, largely speaking.
So for all of these issues to come about in a relatively small space of time is worrying.

Originally posted by TrueBrit
When an aircraft prepares to take off, a check list of precautions, saftey measures, tests and box ticking happens, in order to prevent a mid air catastrophy

Oh come on, you don't really think a crew would take off if there was smoke filling the cockpit before takeoff do you? That's absurd.

Something happened after takeoff, they just won't take off if there's any kind of smoke in the cockpit.

The Rolls Royce incident is disturbing but I don't see how that's the fault of Qantas, on the contrary, they have kept the planes grounded for a long time as a safety measure, even longer than competing airlines with the same plane/engine combination.

I think anyone accusing Qantas of being sloppy based on this story is misinterpreting facts. Now if you have facts to show that, please post them, but the evidence we have so far doesn't suggest that at all, on the contrary, their safety record is still one of the best in the industry, with the fewest fatalities!

reply to post by afaik


Here's a conspiracy for you.

Sydney is one of the most sought after airline routes, if not the most sought after route for airlines in the world.

This sort of thing has happened with America twice. All the planes needing some stoppage time.

Qantas has a large amount of say in who gets to open routes.

Few american airlines have any presence in Sydney airport.

I've heard if enough money gets put out accidents can happen on aircraft, I even know of one airline who has supposedly tried it on before. Then that airline might be convinced to allow an extra route.

See if anyone opens any new airline routes to australia in the coming months, would be interesting.

reply to post by ShadowScholar


This report doesn't match the previous problems which were clearly engine backfires.
Smoke in the cockpit maybe Weed has an explanation of what it could be?

reply to post by Bordon81


If you were paid to make accidents happen, you'd be pretty devoid of creativity to keep pulling the same prank wouldn't you?

Besides I'm sure pilots smoke on planes and all sorts of other wonderful nonsense, though, if that were the truth in this instance, why turn around and head to Sydney and not steamroll onwards to Jamaica?

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I wasnt suggesting sloppyness. Im sorry if thats how that read out .... What I am saying, is that it seems disturbing that so many of these oddities have occurred, in what is , in industry terms, a relatively short space of time. In no way am I pointing at Qantas and saying " these people are slacking " . However, I am wondering what it might be that causes this amount of incidents , especialy in a company which has such a marvelous record.
I worry about industrial espionage, and also I worry that thier suppliers might be cost cutting , without the knowlege of Qantas themselves. I certainly did not mean to suggest that Qantas were cutting corners, and again, I apologise if thats how my post came across.

reply to post by Bordon81


an aircraft like the 747 has miles of wiring and thousands of electrical connections. Atually, I looked in our maintenance manual and there are 171 miles of wire in a -400. They found a "small fault", journalese for short circuit in the instrument panel. A 747-400, whether engined with the Pratt & Whitney PW4000, GE CF-6, or Rolls-Royce RB211 has 4 generator to provide electrical power, both AC and DC. The instrument panel requires both types of current, with the AC at 115v, 400Hz. Most of the avionics are AC. A lot of the "steam gauge" instruments na part of the glass cockpit are DC. That is a lot of very busy electrons going very fast rubbing shoulders and heating up the wires, which increases resistance, which causes more heat. At some point, insulation smolders.

This is a phenomena where reporters get interested in aircraft incidents following some big flashy incident or accident. Like sharks in a feeding frenzy. As a result lots of other incidents get news coverage for a while. Before the interest dies down again.

There are always air incidents occurring worldwide. Occurrence reporting and follow up actions are required by regulations and are part of the safety management system of all reputable airlines.

Originally posted by TrueBrit
I wasnt suggesting sloppyness. Im sorry if thats how that read out .... What I am saying, is that it seems disturbing that so many of these oddities have occurred, in what is , in industry terms, a relatively short space of time. In no way am I pointing at Qantas and saying " these people are slacking " . However, I am wondering what it might be that causes this amount of incidents , especialy in a company which has such a marvelous record.

It comes across as suggesting that you see "deeper problems":

Originally posted by TrueBrit
this current speight of faults and failiures at Qantas points to deeper problems than even detonating engines.....
So for all of these issues to come about in a relatively small space of time is worrying.

Deeper problems like what?

I'm not seeing even the slightest hint of deeper problems, they've had the exploding engine and the smoke in the cockpit recently, both of which appear to be isolated incidents. I thought you were referring to maintenance as a possible cause but even espionage I'm not seeing any evidence for. Do you really think this might be a sign of deeper problems? If so please elaborate because I'm not seeing it.

I've flown Qantas before on a 747 and would do so again now without hesitation. I'm not crazy about boarding their A380 however, that may be a deep problem with Rolls Royce and not specifically Qantas. I'll wait until they get a good resolution to that Rolls Royce engine issue before boarding one of those.