They say bad things come in three's, well Qantas have had their three.
First Incident.
The first incident started yesterday when one of their A330'S on a flight from Perth to Sydney diverted to Melbourne due to what was later described as a fault in the air conditioning system. QF 568, an A330-303, being operated by VH-QPF (CN 0595) departed Perth at 12.28pm Perth time and climbed to 370. Passengers have since report that the plane all of a sudden just jerked hard and then we started going down, then the oxygen masks dropped and a recorded message was playing on how to put on the mask. One passenger reported people next to me were sending goodbye messages and stuff like that. It was a bit crazy. Paramedic Sam Bumphrey was also on the flight. She did what she could to calm those around her. "Because everyone was freaking out, hyper-ventilating… There was a couple, a young lady struggling big time," she recalled. Qantas said the issue was in the air conditioning that affected the ability to maintain cabin pressure.
Some passengers told the media there was a smell of burning plastic in the moments before the emergency descent. The plane landed in Melbourne 3 hours 50 minutes later at 6.18 Melbourne time.
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| QANTAS A330-303 VH-QPF (CN 0595) |
Second Incident
This morning a flight from Brisbane to Auckland had to return to Brisbane on one engine.
QF 123, an A330-202, being operated by VH-EBR (CN 1251) departed at 9.05am and headed out to sea climbing to 380. 18 minutes later at 9.23 am and passing 21,500 the aircraft experienced what is called engine shudder. The pilots levelled out and immediately started a turn back to Brisbane while dumping fuel along the way. The standard full emergency was declared and fire fighters were on hand when the aircraft touched down safely at 9.44am.
It was decided that the aircraft that was to be used for the Singapore flight at midday, QF 51, would be used as the replacement aircraft; cancelling the Singapore flight altogether. QF 123 finally got away at 1.25pm and the replacement aircraft was another A330-202 being operated by VH-EBM (CN 1061)
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| QANTAS A330-202 VH-EBR (CN 1251) |
Third Incident
The third and hopefully final incident for now was with a B737. The flight from Sydney to Coolangatta had to divert to Brisbane with a flaps issue. QF 862, a B737-838 being operated by VH-VXJ (CN 33480) departed Sydney right on 3pm and head to Coolangatta. At 3.35pm it started its descent into Cooly and soon realised there was a flaps issue. Doing a missed approach from 1,200 feet at 3.57pm the aircraft climbed and headed out to sea before turning north and headed for Brisbane. Once again the fire fighters were called out (just in case) but the aircraft landed safely at 4.31pm.
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| QANTAS B737-838 VH-VXJ (CN 33480) |
I hope Qantas have now used up their bad run as I am on a Qantas flight Tuesday morning.
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