Tractor, hail damage new Qantas jet

[Wirraway]

Sun "Sunday Telegraph"

Tractor, hail damage new Qantas jet
January 11, 2004

A NEW $250 million Qantas jet has undergone thousands of dollars worth of emergency repairs after it was hit by a tractor before being struck by hail while enroute from Los Angeles.

The Boeing 747 400ER is one of six of the new extended range planes Qantas added to its fleet a year ago for international long-haul flights.

On December 2, the plane sustained damage to an engine thrust reverser after a tow tractor crashed into it while on the ground at Sydney's Kingsford-Smith Airport.

A Qantas spokesman said the driver of the tractor suffered minor injuries.

The aircraft was returned to service on December 18.

Just over a week later, the plane was caught in a hail storm while enroute from Los Angeles to Melbourne.

The plane's nose cone and part of its fuselage was damaged in the storm.

A Qantas spokesman said the plane had since resumed service. "The engine itself was not damaged," he said.

The Sunday Telegraph

===========================================

[pullock]

Funny I havn't seen many TRACTORS on the airport, but there are whole heap of TUGS.

Well done on poor reporting there mate!!

[Johhny Utah]

Must have been a slow news day/weekend - particularly if the 6 week old story of a tug doing minor damage by running into a jet is trotted out yet again...?:confused:

Perhaps Virgin Blue "on the verge of losing/handing back" their ETOPS approval is a much bigger story than two tenously (at best) related incidents, neither of which were really newsworthy.

Then again, perhaps everyone in the media has fallen under the spell of 'he who can do no wrong' (thereby joining the general public) :confused:

[Feeton Terrafirma]

Sorry Mr Utah but ETOPS is not a news worthy item. Reason being that a survey conducted of SLF has shown that 100% of those surveyed havent a clue what ETOPS is but that they all assume that the engine turns or passengers swim regardless of realities. :confused:

[Johhny Utah]

Really? So you're saying that the public aren't interested in such things...?

Perhaps you should cast your mind back to Easter of several years ago when the biggest news story was Ansetts self admission that they weren't complying with an advisory issued by Boeing.

Feeton, I think patriot 1 summed it up best on the Virgin Blue ETOPS thread:
Ansett was grounded and subsequently destroyed for an issue significantly less than this, and I might add, an issue which was labelled "non-compliant" by CASA, but later refuted by Boeing and BASI reports. This current issue is an overt, non-contested, blatant breach of the mandate. If the media knew what ETOPS was then this would be national news.

But then again, Virgin Blue doesn't require the same standards applied to itself as an organisation, because they're the little Aussie underdog, battling to keep the air fair... :rolleyes:

[Johhny Utah]

yeah, I'm really jealous of Virgin. You've sure got me there....:rolleyes:

Why would I be jealous of those who earn less money, spend more time at work, fly to fewer destinations, have less career prospects, and who had to pay for the privilege...?:confused: yeah yeah, I know - a quick command perhaps? But what happens after that - any ideas where all of the DJ guys are going to go to make their money once they've got some jet command time... :confused:

When you work it out, you get back to me....

I'm just trying to suggest that Virgin Blue as an organisation should perhaps spend more time fixing some of their problems, rather than going on telling the world how great they are, and how they're not just in it for the profits, how they're keeping the air fair bah blah blah...:rolleyes:

[Capt Claret]

How the hell does such an innoxious topic such as this one, descend into the usual PPRuNe flame war of my willy's bigger 'n your's and you must be a dropkick??? :{ :rolleyes:

[RaTa]

Back on the topic.

Johhny U.....the damage apparently was more than minor according to an engineer I spoke with, minor damage does not take a couple of weeks to fix!
By the way the term "tractor" is used in some parts of the world for what we know as a tug.

[Johhny Utah]

I'm not trying to deny that Virgin has probably given some guys an opportunity to fly a jet in Australia - they have certainly done that.:O All I'm trying to say is that in my opinion there are better jobs out there than Virgin - I figure I'm justy lucky to have one of these jobs.

I'm glad that working for Virgin makes you happy. At the end of the day, I guess that is all that really matters.

As long as you can accept that I feel the same way & can stop accusing me of being jealous of "the DJ way", then I guess that's the end of it :cool: