From Crikey.com
10. Memo Qantas: safety and spin aren't the same thing
Ben Sandilands writes:
Let’s challenge the Qantas spin about how safety conscious the airline is in the aftermath of QF2’s power failure on approach to Bangkok a week ago.
The same jet performed a scenic flight over Antarctica on New Year’s eve.
If the problem had occurred on that flight the naval ships and Japanese whalers might be reaching its last known position about now.
Qantas admits the problem was related to water from a leaking galley seeping into and shorting the normal electrical distribution system, forcing the jet onto a backup battery system.
And all the world now knows that Qantas hasn’t been keeping water from overflowing in its cabins for some time, given the information ‘flooding in’ from passengers.
If it is going to continue to dispatch jets with taped up sinks or wet carpets why isn’t it formulating a safety check list for pilots to refer to in the event of another power failure?
The crew of QF2 acted instinctively. Their cockpit screens were crammed with warnings generated by the power failure. Instead of thumbing through the manuals to trouble shoot a crisis no Boeing 747 crew is on record of having to deal with they just took a shot for the runway.
The Qantas Antarctica flight was cleared to descend to a lower level to ensure a better view during its 12 or so hours away. It imitated the descent QF2 was making when the water sloshed forward in its first class cabin, shortly before lights out but fortuitously close to Bangkok.
The water blamed for this incident which points to shoddy maintenance and possibly more could have sunk to the same sweet spot that shorted QF2 just as readily over the ice cap.
Consider this. Once the back up battery and invertor fails, about an hour after the main supply goes down, there is no radio communication and very little flight instrumentation.
There is no electrically assisted fuel transfers to configure the load in its tanks for optimum efficiency and this jet is at times at least four hours from Australia during which some fuel transfers would be expected to take place.
There is no capacity to restart the engines of a 747 in flight with no electrical power if fuel starvation occurs. But if the jet does make it back to Australia the lack of electrical power means a fast flaps up landing almost certainly with the wheels up as well.
It means a crash.
The spin concerning this incident is unacceptable. If the responsible minister Anthony Albanese is being told by his minders in Transport and officials in CASA that everything is just fine he needs to decide whether to dismiss them before or after the Royal Commission.
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