Plane Talking by Ben Sandilands
April 6, 2010 – 6:55 pm, by Ben Sandilands
Qantas is in all sorts of ‘strife’ today , a turn back at Bangkok, another cracked windscreen in Melbourne, and mechanical delays to a flight from LA to Brisbane, all involving 747s.
The Bangkok incident involved lengthy delays to yesterday’s QF1 Boeing 747-400 to London which returned to Bangkok after an engine surge early this morning. Its 335 passengers are now in a hotel awaiting a replacement 747. And as the airline has been quick to admit, the jet that broke down was last serviced in Australia. Only recently.
As if routine breakdowns weren’t enough, the Fairfax press is reporting a case of a loony trying to bring down a Qantas jet with mind power, and being silly enough to share his obsession with everyone nearby, causing him to finish the flight in hand and leg cuffs.
All up the media spent the day engaged in the biggest Qantas safety frenzy of the year, so far.
And its all a shallow media sham. None of these incidents matter two cents, but a culpable, lazy media is chasing after problems where Qantas has dealt in the safest possible manner with typical operational breakdowns, yet ignored the really serious issues affecting both the carrier and the integrity of air safety administration in Australia.
But those stories are hard to get.
Take the case of the damaged windscreen in a 737 that continued to fly because a so called professional engineer, breaking with his striking colleagues, ignored the intent and purpose of an airworthiness directive that requires immediate replacement of the damaged pane.
As reported in Plane Talking the crux of this incident is that:
…what Qantas saw as a situation that was tolerable on the night of February 7 was deemed intolerable on February 8 and the windscreen panel was replaced before the jet continued in service, even though it was a mere 65 minutes block time from its base in Melbourne.
That’s a story about a screw up that could have killed around 176 people in a full Qantas 737-800.
Or the incredible case of Qantas subsidiary Jetstar, which not only couldn’t produce documentation related to a dangerous missed approach to Melbourne Airport in 2007, but failed to report it fully to the ATSB until forced to do so by a report in Crikey and Aviation Business.
This prima facie criminal failing on the part of Jetstar was followed by NO ENFORCEMENT ACTION by the ATSB.
There is something rotten in the public administration of air safety in Australia, and the government, the opposition, and the general media are complicit in ignoring the situation.
These are the real Qantas group stories.
Footnote: Qantas can’t even report its international traffic figures for Jetstar accurately to the ASX, instead pumping them up the Jetstar NZ domestic figures. Will the ASX act? Crikey filed a complaint with the ASX last Thursday.
This report appeared earlier in the day in the Crikey subscriber email bulletin.
Comments (0) | Permalink