Qantas 747- 400 Flight 30 Blowout Hole!

[cyclonic]

Thanks for that!

Update for QF30. Preliminary investigation has found no evidence of a bomb; investigators are focussing on the oxygen cylinders:

Your welcome.

I am relieved it was not a bomb or metal fatigue.
Qantas has the best safety record and great service.

 

[technoextreme]

Anyone dying is a pretty good definition of "worse".

Not really. It depends on whether or not on what most engineers say what they would have expected to happen. If it was dumb luck that everyone survived then I would be spouting of copious amounts of pffffftttttss for you but if engineers expected the plane to remain operational then you are right. After reading your link though Im giving you some pffftttsss because it does seem a large amount of luck was involved.

 

[pgwenthold]

Your welcome.

I am relieved it was not a bomb or metal fatigue.
Qantas has the best safety record .

Hey, if Rainman says it, who am I to argue?

I did like their service, btw

 

[doobiedoright]

Thanks for that!

Update for QF30. Preliminary investigation has found no evidence of a bomb; investigators are focussing on the oxygen cylinders:

I guess lessons were not learned from Value Jet flight 592 .


http://www.cnn.com/US/9611/15/valujet/index.html

 

[BPSCG]

Personally I think it was a missile fired towards the plane by a sooper seekret US ship which was trying to hit a UFO.

It's a cover-up I tells ya.

...which explains why the metal around the hole is pushed to the outside...

I was on a Delta flight not long ago that hit the worst turbulence I'd ever encountered. The single flight attendant was talking with Mrs. BPSCG's mother at the time, and she had to grab the vacant seat on the aisle and hold on while the plane bounced up and down. Apart from the noise of the plane bouncing around, it was deathly silent in the cabin. I got a look at the attendant and could see even she was a little worried. When the turbulence eased up a bit, the attendant got up, walked quickly to the front of the plane, picked up the intercom, and very matter-of-factly announced that it looked like we weren't going to be able to land at Rapid City. She sounded as cool and as unruffled as if she was announcing that our in-flight magazines could be located in the seatback in front of us. She then started talking about what our options would be when we landed at Casper, Wyoming, just like it was all something that happened every day. She had everyone relaxed and even joking in a matter of seconds.

They don't just pour coffee.

 

[Hokulele]

Not really. It depends on whether or not on what most engineers say what they would have expected to happen. If it was dumb luck that everyone survived then I would be spouting of copious amounts of pffffftttttss for you but if engineers expected the plane to remain operational then you are right. After reading your link though Im giving you some pffftttsss because it does seem a large amount of luck was involved.

I'm sorry, but this post makes no sense to me. How does an engineer's expectations of flight performance have anything to do with the results of an air disaster being better or worse?

 

[Magenta]

I guess lessons were not learned from Value Jet flight 592 .


http://www.cnn.com/US/9611/15/valujet/index.html

I'm no expert but the ValuJet crash appears to have been caused by very different circumstances from the Qantas accident. The fire on Flight 592 was started by chemical oxygen generators:

The NTSB determined that just before takeoff, expired chemical oxygen generators were placed in the cargo compartment in five boxes marked COMAT (company-owned material) by ValuJet's maintenance contractor, SabreTech, in contravention of FAA regulations forbidding the transport of hazardous materials in aircraft cargo holds. Failure to cover the firing pins for the generators with the prescribed plastic caps made an accidental activation much more likely. SabreTech employees indicated on the cargo manifest that the canisters were empty, when in fact they were not.

Wikipedia

The oxygen cylinders (not chemical oxygen generators) on the Qantas flight were the emergency supply for the pilots. It appears that one of them exploded:

A VALVE from an oxygen cylinder blasted a hole at least 20 centimetres in diameter in the floor of the passenger cabin of the Qantas 747 stricken in last week's mid-air emergency.

"We recovered a valve from an oxygen cylinder," Neville Blyth, a senior investigator with the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau, told a news conference yesterday. "It is likely that that valve is from the missing cylinder."

[...]

An oxygen cylinder had never before exploded mid-air on a passenger aircraft, a Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman, Peter Gibson, said yesterday. He confirmed the oxygen cylinder was missing, and would be a key focus of the bureau investigation.

"If it turns out that is the cause of the accident, the cause of the hole in the side of the aircraft, obviously that will be a key part of the investigation - working out why a bottle would suddenly give way," he said.

Source

 

[Fitter]

<snip>

I would be wondering what the hell would mechanics be doing in the engineers union and who the hell would lump engineers with mechanics.

It is Commonwealth terminology. In Canada the equivalent of a U.S. A&P (Airframe and powerplants) mechanic is an A.M.E. (Aircraft Maintenance Engineer). As my dad says "They'd rather give you a title than a pay raise."

 

[Magenta]

Hey, if Rainman says it, who am I to argue?

I did like their service, btw

You probably knew this already but Rainman wasn't accurate - Qantas has had fatal accidents, but has not had fatalities or a hull loss with their jet aircraft.

 

[lionking]

FWIW Qantas still has the best safety record, with zero planes lost in it's many years of operation.

 

[lionking]

Missed your link before I posted magenta. Should have said any jets lost.

 

[pgwenthold]

I will say, to never have a jet crash is indeed very impressive (no crashes since 1951? Not bad)

 

[WildCat]

Apparently the CVR was overwritten, so there is no CVR recording of the crisis: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/qantas.recorder.ap/index.html

This can only mean one thing - Inside job!!!11eleventy!!1!!

 

[Magenta]

Apparently the CVR was overwritten, so there is no CVR recording of the crisis: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/qantas.recorder.ap/index.html

This can only mean one thing - Inside job!!!11eleventy!!1!!

The only CT angle I can come up with is that those weren't really O2 cylinders. Chemtrails anyone?!

I bet those were an anxious two hours or so before they landed, not knowing exactly what had happened or what might yet happen.

 

[casebro]

I'd think that placing a small bomb next to an oxygen cylinder would be a good way to leverage said small bomb. The Big Conspiracy Theorists sent me that message via the waves from the local cell phone tower.

But I do wonder if there isn't a maintenance hatch that could give access to a bomber, right at that central tank location? The mechanics need outside access to fill the tanks. Perhaps leaving the door loose allowed the valve to freeze and get brittle at high altitude?

 

[a_unique_person]

Apparently the CVR was overwritten, so there is no CVR recording of the crisis: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/qantas.recorder.ap/index.html

This can only mean one thing - Inside job!!!11eleventy!!1!!

I have obtained a secret copy of a portion of the so called 'missing' tape, keep this quiet. I have have transcribed it below.

****** what was that.

****** hell.

It's blown a big ******* hole in the side, and we're losing pressure.

***** christ I hope we get out of this alive.

Hold on to your ****** we've got to descend right now.

 

[BPSCG]

I'd think that placing a small bomb next to an oxygen cylinder would be a good way to leverage said small bomb. The Big Conspiracy Theorists sent me that message via the waves from the local cell phone tower.

Preliminary investigations say they haven't found evidence of explosives.

But I do wonder if there isn't a maintenance hatch that could give access to a bomber, right at that central tank location? The mechanics need outside access to fill the tanks. Perhaps leaving the door loose allowed the valve to freeze and get brittle at high altitude?

Two possible objections to that:

1) Isn't there some cockpit indicator that would alert the crew that there was a door ajar? And,

2) I think the temperature would have to get considerably lower than what it gets to at 30,000 feet - minus fifty or sixty degrees Farenheit, IIRC - to cause the valves to get that brittle (I'm not a metallurgist).

All that having been said, how often do O₂ bottles explode?

 

[technoextreme]

I'm sorry, but this post makes no sense to me. How does an engineer's expectations of flight performance have anything to do with the results of an air disaster being better or worse?

Im trying to say that loss of life in this case is a stupid metric because if one were to be honest all of the people on that airplane should have been killed.

I'd think that placing a small bomb next to an oxygen cylinder would be a good way to leverage said small bomb. The Big Conspiracy Theorists sent me that message via the waves from the local cell phone tower.

The plane would have been in teeny tiny little itty bitt witty microscopic pieces if that happened.

It is Commonwealth terminology. In Canada the equivalent of a U.S. A&P (Airframe and powerplants) mechanic is an A.M.E. (Aircraft Maintenance Engineer). As my dad says "They'd rather give you a title than a pay raise."

That can't possibly be correct. What do you call your engineers than?

All that having been said, how often do O2 bottles explode?

Never as far as I have heard. Though from what is being attributed to an exploding air tank in this accident is actually an air tank whose valve snapped off which is extremely dangerous as the Mythbusters showed. They essentially become giant rockets.

 

[BPSCG]

Never as far as I have heard. Though from what is being attributed to an exploding air tank in this accident is actually an air tank whose valve snapped off which is extremely dangerous as the Mythbusters showed. They essentially become giant rockets.

Another Mythbusters episode took on some Hollywood myths, among them the climactic scene in Jaws where Roy Scheider gets the shark to chew on an O₂ tank, then shoots the tank with a high-powered rifle, causing it to explode and rain shark meat all over the pristine ocean (where are the EPA, PETA, and Greenpeace when you need them?).

Result: Busted myth. O₂ tanks don't explode just because you looked at them crosseyed.

 

[Fitter]

That can't possibly be correct. What do you call your engineers than?

Sorry but it is correct. In Canada we call engineers iron-ringers, well those of us with military backgrounds do.