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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
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"?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
It comes across as suggesting that you see "deeper problems":
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.
Deeper problems like what?
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.