Qantas and Journalism
major news channels carried a brief and blunt message: a Qantas flight had been diverted so as to land at an Australian Air Force base.
Shortly afterwards, an addendum: the diversion followed an incident "involving another plane."
Given Qantas recent history, the brevity of the reports left much to be desired.
Visiting the Qantas website this morning to ascertain the facts met with a website that was broken.
So what did happen?
True, QF 842 from Sydney to Darwin did land at Tindal RAAF base. And it was held there.
But, this is the back story: when QF842 arrived at Darwin's small airport, it could not land because of "an incident" involving a light aircraft. Put into a holding pattern, the pilot wanted to play safe on fuel: Darwin is a long way from anywhere else in Australia: in fact it's nearer to many places in Indonesia than to any other civilian airstrip capable of taking large commercial aircraft. The flight normally uses a Boeing 737-800 but it has not been confirmed if that was the aircraft on that occasion. But nothing at all turns on the aircraft in use. The pilot decided that if he could not put down, he should make provision for additional fuel. And so he arranged to fly some 300km south to Tindal. There the aircraft was refuelled and waited until it was told it could fly to Darwin and land.
Qantas pilots have a reputation for pragmatism. The term "no-nonsense Aussies" might have been coined for them. With bluntness tinged with humour, they are renowned for cutting comments - even about passengers. And everyone loves them for it.
The decision to go to Tindal was an example of that pragmatism. Why fly around in circles for an unknown length of time, burning fuel, when it's only have an hour to a pitstop? And why risk running low on fuel and having to declare an emergency? A Jetstar flight from Cairns made the same decision.
What happened to the light aircraft?
The wheels fell off. Literally. Its undercarriage collapsed as it ran down the runway.
But even that information is misreported: one published report says the undercarriage on the Cessna broke on take-off and another says it happened on landing.
Whichever, the aircraft suffered damage on the main runway and although it was dragged away quickly, the airport authorities spent a couple of hours making sure that both the tarmac and the nearby grass was free of debris. After all, it doesn't take much to cause a catastrophe as the Paris crash of Concorde demonstrated.
And so, the fact is that this was a good news story for Qantas. But it was presented in such a way that it appeared to be exactly the opposite.