Just for a little perspective, there's a lot of blame on here on cost cutting. And with the tiers of personnel in Qantas, this means that there has to be many willing participants in the process, including the "workers".
It appears in this case that two things have come together (and bear in mind I'm only making an assumption based on the postings on pprune): loose procedures in the cabin with a clogged sink and a missing drain thingy/water barrier. Is this a result of cost cutting that coffee grounds are disposed in the sink and the ginger beers leave off the drain thingy?
I would think an important question to ask is where is the drain if it was indeed left off? Usually if there are components left around in a hangar after the aircraft is pushed out, someone will ask why. I can't see an engineer depositing an extra drain to the stores without raising some red flags.
In a classic safety study way, either one of these components to the incident is not a huge concern. Put them both together and they could have destroyed an aircraft and its contents. How many people in the world could have forseen that? Perhaps there will be a greater awareness of the need to follow procedures even down to disposing of coffee grounds.
Last edited by Lodown; 9th Jan 2008 at 22:12.