Yet another Qantas Safety Scare.

[Petch]

"EIGHTEEN passengers on board a Qantas flight had a nerve-wracking time when their plane malfunctioned and its crew was forced to use a back-up system to lower its nose wheel before making an emergency landing."

...continues @
Qantas plane in nose wheel drama | NEWS.com.au

 

[JohnK]

The article does not mention if the passengers were informed of the issue. Circling a small airport like ROK for an hour is a give away that something is wrong. I cannot begin to imagine how they would have felt.

Glad that they were able to land safely and all is OK.

 

[simongr]

Just wondering if the flight was shceduled to land at ROK and they used a back up system to properly lower the nose wheel why this was classified as an emergency landing?

Wonder if the press are trying to equate this with the AA "emergency landing".

Nice that the press can report every malfunction on every flight now - I wonder if my KA flight that returned to HKG last year made it into the local press

 

[Petch]

Just wondering if the flight was scheduled to land at ROK and they used a back up system to properly lower the nose wheel why this was classified as an emergency landing?

Two issues here -

• there seems to be some net-gossip around at the moment (possibly something Qantas is trying to suppress?!) that there is a systemic nose gear problem with the Q400 aircraft
• SAS has retired their entire Q400 fleet (again, we can only speculate on their full rationale)

So, as is often the case with "news-worthiness", we may need to read between the lines…


To placate my worries, personally, I need to hear a joint announcement from Bombardier AND SAS along the lines of –

SAS & Bombardier have agreed to a confidential financial settlement, in regard to SAS’s retirement of its Q400 fleet. SAS & Bombardier would both like to make it categorically clear, that this retirement was due solely to consumer sentiment in Scandinavia, and not in anyway to a design or systemic flaw in the Q400 landing gear. Engineers from both companies have investigated the recent failures, and concluded “some engineering talk about not a problem”.

I also want to see the name of SAS’s top engineer (who ever that is) associated with the announcement.

I would expect QantasLink management to be doing all they can, to help facilitate SAS & Bombardier coming together to make this sort of announcement soon!

 

[straitman]

Petch,

Without looking it up I'm absolutely positive that there are more than just 2 or 3 airlines using the Q400. As I've posted about this previously, I've also learnt that when one operator has problems that are out of proportion to what others are having that it points the finger squarely back at the operator. Most times is not really a type problem but a training (or other) issue within the operators organisation.

 

[Expon]

Just wondering if the flight was shceduled to land at ROK and they used a back up system to properly lower the nose wheel why this was classified as an emergency landing?

Wonder if the press are trying to equate this with the AA "emergency landing".

I'd like to think if I was on a plane that had landing gear issues that the pilot declared an emergency. It's more so that the fire and ambo's are on standby incase the gear does collapse.

 

[straitman]

I'd like to think if I was on a plane that had landing gear issues that the pilot declared an emergency. It's more so that the fire and ambo's are on standby incase the gear does collapse.

From my experience it's the US pilots who really don't declare emergencies and ATC has to drag it out of them whereas the Oz pilots tend to be much more open and if in doubt declare the emergency.

 

[JohnK]

Without looking it up I'm absolutely positive that there are more than just 2 or 3 airlines using the Q400.

Wikipedia mentions there are around 35 airlines that use the Q400 and as of April 2007, 140 Q400 aircraft are in airline service, with 215 orders.

Dash 8 Current Operators

 

[Yada Yada]

There have been problems with the Crash-8's lately. I'm sure I read about a worldwide inspection that had to be done regarding landing gear. I believe that QF had checked all their planes. Maybe not closely enough??? :shock: