QANTAS emergency landing - forced change in altitude. WHY?

G'day all,

all the aussie members would have seen the following news report on tv tonight, a QF72 was forced to make a drastic drop in altitude which caused 40 passengers and crew to get injured, some pretty bad.

www.news.com.au...

PASSENGERS and crew suffered serious injuries after a Qantas jet travelling from Singapore to Perth made an emergency landing.

Up to 40 people suffered injuries, including lacerations and fractures, after QF72 was forced to make an emergency landing following a sudden change in altitude.

Western Australian Police Sergeant Greg Lambert said 10 passengers had been taken to Exmouth Regional Hospital with injuries described as "quite serious''.

"The nature of the mid-air incident is unknown.''

What did the Qantas flight have to avoid so severely with such little notice to cause such a drop in altitude that it cause those sort of injuries?

What was up there that they almost hit?

and the fact that the nature of the mid air incident is unknown seems to smell of a coverup.....silence unitl we can think of a decent cover story.

anybody else find this story suspicious?

The plane landed at Exmouth, here there is also an airforce base called a bare base with basic facilties that can be reactivated at short notice. Tie this in with the following -
en.wikipedia.org...

The town was established in 1964 to support the nearby United States Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt. Beginning in the late 1970s, the town began hosting U.S. Air Force personnel assigned to Learmonth Solar Observatory, a defence science facility jointly operated with Australia's Ionospheric Prediction Service.

Not far from here is the airforce base of Derby which has regular training of air force pilots.......

maybe going off the beaten track here but just trying to put 2 and 2 together......did the Qantas flight avoid a pilot training off course, or was it something else?

UFO?

Meteor?

i would find it maybe suspicious if qantas hadnt been having all the mid air dramas their having lately. its like nearly 10 incidents in the last 3 months. not long now till they have a crash

Apparently there was a combination of turbulence but also instrumentation problems. But it'd have to be some pretty serious instrumentation problem to drop altitude like that (I'm guessing).

Given Qantas's problems recently, I'm not particularly surprised.

We'll have to wait for some more detail, it's really "out in the sticks" - I remember the spin they put on it when the panel blew out of a Qantas flight a few months ago.

"Oh, this was just a minor incident, nothing to worry about..." Then the stories of people not being able to breathe trickled through and they had to admit there was in fact a serious problem.

WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said he understood the incident was caused by "some sort of systems failure".

Yeah......right.

Maybe they were dodging the UFO that's loitering around waiting for the 14th .

I would suggest that its a combination of mid air turbulence, which affects almost every flight at some point, some wose than others, and maybe they are cutting back on their maintanance to keep costs down in the current climate.

Im a believer, but to randomley suggest that they swerved to avoid a UFO seems crazy without ANY evidence to back it up. People on here amaze me somethimes with the reaches they make

yeah I thought it all seemed a little bit suss......but maybe Im just looking into it too much.

heres another link -
www.3aw.com.au...

The Airbus A330 put out a Mayday call after it struck severe turbulence near Christmas Island.

A number of passengers and crew sustained injuries, including fractures and lacerations.

either way, for the plane to decend so harsh and so quick that passengers ended up with lacerations and fractures, they would have been thrown out of their seats.......

do pilots normally "dive" the passenger plane when they encounter turbulance? its not as if it shows up on radar, normally they'd fly through wouldnt they?

If it were a simple matter of common turbulence, something that happens frequently, why are they being so 'cloak and dagger' about it?

That and the fact that different sources seem to be reporting different reasons. One says turbulence, another says instrument failure. Nobody seems to be getting the story straight.

Originally posted by otto2294
i would find it maybe suspicious if qantas hadnt been having all the mid air dramas their having lately. its like nearly 10 incidents in the last 3 months. not long now till they have a crash

Or off-shore maintenance.......


tell me its not the reason!!!!

do pilots normally "dive" the passenger plane when they encounter turbulance? its not as if it shows up on radar, normally they'd fly through wouldnt they?






I think what happens is when a plane hits clear air turbulance,the plane drops of its own accord because it cannot generate lift.Then when it hits clean air it regains flight.

I was in a twin engined Cessna flying over to Katherine, which is in the NT. The plane literally fell straight down because It hit a pocked of extreme low pressure air, i think we feel straight down 1000 - 1200ft. There is also happened to a scenic flight tour over Ayers Rock which is central aus in the late 80s.

I Don't know if there is any documented cases of extreme low pressure pockets in northern AUS but I certainly have experience it.

From au.news.yahoo.com...

WA assistant police commissioner John McRoberts said 36 of the 303 passengers aboard the aircraft were injured, 12 of them seriously and were taken to Exmouth Regional Hospital.

It was not known if any of the plane's 10 crew were injured, he said.

A Health Department spokeswoman said Exmouth hospital was assessing the passengers' injuries.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service was preparing to send up to four planes to Exmouth to fly the most seriously injured to Perth, but RFDS public affairs director Lesleigh Green said none of the passengers' injuries was thought to be life threatening.

Mr McRoberts told reporters that two planes carrying three medical teams were on their way to Exmouth to tend to the injured.

Twelve customs officers also were aboard the planes and would assist in the transfer of unharmed passengers to Perth, he said.

"Alternative arrangements are being made for those who may not want to travel on aircraft this evening," Mr McRoberts said.

He said Perth airport had activated its accident emergency plan and Department of Child Protection staff would be at the airport awaiting the arrival of the two planes to assist with repatriation.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had been contacted and foreign embassies and consular officials would be alerted as soon as possible to advise of foreign nationals involved in the incident, Mr McRoberts said.

The Air Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said it had commenced investigating the incident, which it described as a "sudden in-flight upset" while cruising in "level flight".

It said most of the injured were travelling in the rear of the aircraft.

"The crew declared a mayday and diverted the aircraft to Learmonth, near Exmouth in WA, where it landed without further incident," the ATSB said in a statement.

Neither the ATSB or Qantas would confirm that turbulence was responsible for the aircraft's sudden drop.

Two ATSB investigators were on their way to the airport to investigate the incident and another five would arrive as soon as possible.

This was not turbulence. I have NEVER heard of turbulence creating this much turmoil.

[edit on 7/10/2008 by Kryties]

reply to post by Melbourne_Militia


There could be any number of rational explanations for what happened. Why do you jump to such drastic conclusions without evidence? That is the sign of a highly irrational mind. At least wait for some actual tangible evidence of anything untoward before coming out with this 'information'

reply to post by dave420


Qantas has an almost squeaky clean flying record, being one of the worlds only airlines that has never had a single crash. That, coupled with the fact that the media cannot agree on what caused the plane to suddenly dive, and the fact that I personally have never heard of turbulence causing this much damage and turmoil is what makes us suspect that something else may be the cause.

reply to post by mungodave


yes that is definately a factor. australia has probably the best air safety record in the world so its disapointing when qantas does this to try and save money.

Is it not more likely the aircraft encountered Godzilla and had to dive to avoid his sweeping arms? Or maybe the aircraft flew over that island from LOST? Actually, that would make a lot of sense .....

Turbulence? Instrument malfunction? What bizarre and strange ideas some folk have

This was not turbulence. I have NEVER heard of turbulence creating this much turmoil.

I have.

On December 28, 1997, at 1340 UTC, a United Airlines Boeing 747-122, N4723U, experienced an episode of what the captain described as wave action (see footnote 1) followed by severe turbulence (two closely spaced turbulence encounters) about 870 nautical miles east southeast of New Tokyo International Airport, Narita, Japan (NRT) on Pacific Ocean navigation track 12 (see footnote 2). The airplane was operating under 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 121 in VFR conditions at the time of the accident and was bound for Honolulu, Hawaii (HNL). Of the 374 passengers (including 5 infants) and 19 crewmembers on board, 15 passengers and 3 flight attendants received serious injuries and 1 passenger was killed. Also, 161 minor injuries were sustained by flight attendants and passengers. Following the turbulence encounter, the airplane returned to New Tokyo Airport for an uneventful landing.

www.ntsb.gov...

DENVER -- United Airlines said that 10 people were injured when a Los Angeles-to-Chicago flight encountered severe turbulence early Monday.

United Flight 1028 was diverted to Denver International Airport at 2:55 a.m. and the injured were taken to Denver hospitals to be checked out. Their conditions have not been released but a DIA spokesman said at least six passengers had minor injuries.

www.thedenverchannel.com...

Turbulence related incidents

The following are recent jet airliner mishaps from around the world. In each event, at least one passenger/flight attendant was injured during an unexpected turbulence encounter.

• During a flight from Singapore to Sydney with 236 passengers and 16 crew, the airplane encountered turbulence over central Australia. The plane hit an "air pocket" which caused it to drop 300 feet. Nine passengers including one pregnant woman and three crew members suffered various neck, back and hip injuries, with one of the passengers requiring surgery. Those who were injured were not wearing seat belts.
  
• During a flight from Japan to Brisbane 16 passengers were injured when a large aircraft encountered turbulence. Passengers had been advised to keep their seatbelts fastened while seated. The pilot in command reported that flight conditions were smooth prior to encountering the turbulence. The weather radar did not indicate adverse weather, so the crew did not turn on the seatbelt signs. A number of the passengers who were not wearing their seatbelts were injured when they were thrown from their seats.
  
• A jet hit air turbulence shortly before it landed at a Hong Kong airport, injuring 47 people, seven of them seriously. "It happened very suddenly and everything was very chaotic," one of the 160 passengers aboard the flight said. "The plane just dropped and I saw things flying all over."
  

www.casa.gov.au...

Just remember, what a passenger may consider as 'severe' tubulence is typically not severe at all. Moderate at worst.

[edit on 7/10/2008 by C0bzz]

reply to post by C0bzz


Fair enough hehe. Like I said I had never HEARD of turbulence doing that, and now I have learnt something new today Thanks.

Although I still think that perhaps it was something other than turbulence.

If a plane just "falls", the only thing that can happen is zero Gs. Everyone will become weightless. You won't be violently thrown to the ceiling (gravity doesn't take "longer" to pull you down than the plane itself). However, if the pilot put the plane into a negative G dive (for whatever reason) then people WOULD be thrown to the ceiling.

reply to post by sir_chancealot


Apparently that's what happened...

One of the passengers on the Qantas flight 72, Oddivigh Forbes, has told ABC Radio it was terrifying.

"It happened without any warning," he said.

"I was half asleep and I suddenly realised that we were falling and people were hitting the ceiling of the plane and there was quite a bit of damage actually."

www.abc.net.au...