View Full Version : Serious stuff
TBM-Legend
2nd Nov 2011, 01:01
Police probe alleged Qantas plane sabotage
By Kim Lyell
Posted November 02, 2011 11:16:46
Australian Federal Police are investigating the alleged sabotage of a Qantas plane in Brisbane last week.
They say the plane was undergoing maintenance at Brisbane Airport when workers reported damage to wiring in the in-flight entertainment system.
The damage posed no safety risk to the plane.
The incident came just days before Qantas grounded its fleet, because of the ongoing industrial dispute involving three unions.
I thought that's how most Qantas IFE units come .... broken!
bankrunner
2nd Nov 2011, 01:35
The whole "sabotage" thing is light on information.
Are we talking about actual sabotage, or just vandalism by bored/angry pax because the IFE was rooted again?
Comoman
2nd Nov 2011, 02:11
Original story source was Geoffrey Thomas in The West Australian
Feds probe claims wires cut on Qantas 767 - The West Australian (http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/11243718/feds-probe-claims-wires-cut-on-qantas-767/)
Read into that what you will
Tankengine
2nd Nov 2011, 02:19
So the engineers were away at lunch, and found the damage, so it was not them.:=
Who had access? :confused:
Managers?:confused::E
So the engineers were away at lunch, and found the damage, so it was not them.:=
Who had access? http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/confused.gif
Managers?http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/confused.gifhttp://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/evil.gif
That may not be too far from the truth. This happened last Thursday apparently, and only released today. Being in engineering, this information would have flown around the company like wildfire. I never heard a whisper. I don't think any of the engineers would have been gagged. Have you ever tried to gag or shut up an engineer?
Something's not right here. Death threats, sabotage, union disputes and trashing the brand. QF management are desperate to get somebody, anybody on side and will go to any lengths to have that happen.
Livs Hairdresser
2nd Nov 2011, 02:51
So, to justify the immediate grounding of the airline QF submits a risk analysis to the FWA saying that employees might intentionally carry out unsafe acts ..... then this appears in the media a couple of days later.
Gee, never saw that one coming.
ohallen
2nd Nov 2011, 02:57
And so many similarities to death threats. Light on detail, withheld story until fortuitously it suits the Rats cause (somehow), on first glance and damaging to lames with no substantiation.
I smell a consistent Rat pattern evolving here.
Lets wait and see how this all pans out.
ALAEA Fed Sec
2nd Nov 2011, 02:58
and through the entire period of the grounding our members worked away on aircraft as normal.
ozbiggles
2nd Nov 2011, 03:07
IF Qantas management were so worried about this, what actions did they take to check all their aircraft.....after all safety is the No 2 priority.......No 1 is shafting their customers.
Oakape
2nd Nov 2011, 03:22
It was probably damaged during a stint in overseas maintenance.
It was probably damaged during a stint in overseas maintenance.
Now there's a thought. Damaged wiring overseas, brought back here for repairs.
No, that can't be right. It's the engineers who are out to damage the reputation of the airline and sabotage it. that's why the immediate grounding and threatened lockout of those baaaaad putty tats.
bankrunner
2nd Nov 2011, 04:11
Of course, if someone among the rank and file at QF planned to go as far as to deliberately damage an aircraft, why wouldn't they go do it after the grounding had ended?
If they were going to do it at all in the first place, they'd presumably still be bitter and angry enough to do it a couple of days later.
Do I have a valid point, or is QF management's "logic" just lost on me?
gobbledock
2nd Nov 2011, 04:24
Interesting thread.
Well I once worked for a major carrier who preferred to investigate acts of sabotage, find the culprits and then pay them out to leave, even though sabotage is a federal offence. Rather than have the person(s) arrested and prosecuted by the federal authorities they chose the ' investigate internally, catch the culprit (employee) and give them a payout to leave please' process as it prevents all that yucky negative media scrutiny and reporting which is bad for the business when sabotage is involved..
Of course, if someone among the rank and file at QF planned to go as far as to deliberately damage an aircraft, why wouldn't they go do it after the grounding had ended?
That is because it was allegedly done last Thursday. The question begs why is this information being released only now and being made public if it is being investigated by the Federal Police?
The airline was grounded immediatley on Saturday 29 October, with a lockout two days later. This was supposedly so that staff would not be distracted by the lockout or sabotage the aircraft. The sabotage, if reports are correct, took place before the event. Not during or after. Is this part of the ploy of Joyce and co to justify their illegitimate actions?
another superlame
2nd Nov 2011, 05:45
Livs Hairdresser,
well now I have somewhere to direct my diatribe when she has the unkept hooker look.
Livs Hairdresser
2nd Nov 2011, 06:08
Yeah, sorry about that .... there's only so much I can do with an angle grinder
flyingfox
2nd Nov 2011, 06:08
I don't believe this story has anything to do with engineers. Management inside job? The fact that the information was fed to GT is suspicious in itself. A story produced to fit the management rhetoric?
IF Qantas management were so worried about this, what actions did they take to check all their aircraft.....after all safety is the No 2 priority.......No 1 is shafting their customers.
Actually safety comes third - you forgot shafting Qantas staff.:ok:
Longbow25
2nd Nov 2011, 06:51
Didn't take long for this very convenient crap to surface did it?
There really is no limit to what they will accuse their employees of.
And they wonder why we are so "disengaged".
Engagement is now officially dead with cremation to follow shortly and then I will take up my seat on the river bank.
:mad::mad::mad:
Sabotage (by engineers) seems counter-productive. Engineers want QF to succeed, not fail.
In the past, IFE and Emergency Egress Lighting wiring has been damaged during carpet trimming. A much more likely scenario.
teresa green
2nd Nov 2011, 07:44
They were always U/S on anything I flew. Did this come from the QF spin dept?
teresa green
2nd Nov 2011, 07:47
They were always like that on anything I flew. Did this come from the QF Spin Dept?
bankrunner
2nd Nov 2011, 07:53
Come to think of it, it's a 767. Is the "IFE" on QF's 767s ever not U/S? :E
blackhander
2nd Nov 2011, 09:07
Any comments brissysparkeycoit?
Slippery_Pete
2nd Nov 2011, 11:18
Damaged Qantas wiring?
Surely nothing a few staples won't fix :ok:
DutchRoll
2nd Nov 2011, 11:46
It would often be impossible to tell a normal Qantas Inflight Entertainment System from a sabotaged one, such is the reliability of IFEs tacked on as afterthoughts by the cheapest possible contractor (ie, Qantas ones).
Any Qantas engineer would know that it's pretty pointless sabotaging something for which the MEL page is so worn you can barely read it, so I find this whole scenario highly improbable.
Now if the aircraft had just come out of heavy maintenance overseas, that I could believe, quite easily.......
gobbledock
2nd Nov 2011, 12:51
I agree, what a load of bollocks. I have seen many things in my years in the industry, some really were not nice at all. But to say an Engineer would sabotage an aircraft, remembering that any deaths that could occur as a result would be on his/her conscience is absurd.
a) Such innuendo is another example of a lack of a 'just culture' at the top of the organizational tree - Penalty, 1 RCA.
b) Grounding an airline and locking out innocent staff not connected or involved in any of the dispute is a knee jerk action not thoroughly considered in it's full context, plus it is an instrumental and huge change, so a lack of effectively applying the 'change management process' within the organization (within the SMS) - Penalty 1 RCA.
c) Failure to effectively communicate among staff the decision made on
Saturday by QF management on the grounds of 'safety' again is a direct
violation of the SMS as the impending change should have been promoted
disseminated to staff, and safety promotion does form part of an SMS -
Penalty 1 RCA.
d) Did QF identify the hazards that could be induced by making the decision that they did on Saturday? Did QF then risk manage those hazards effectively, safely and maturely? Some might say that is not the case, certainly hazard identification and risk management is an integral element of the SMS- Penalty, 1 RCA.
e) Third party oversight. Did QF adequately notify all staff including third party contractors of the proposed grounding as this massive action is most certainly part of the 'change management process' within the SMS? I believe some staff were informed mid pushback and did not even know what was happening, so I can hardly see how the 'change management process' was followed on this occasion, and certainly this contravenes the SMS - Penalty, 1 RCA.
Question: The risk assessment process in itself is an in-depth procedure that covers a wide range of variables. The massive impact and potential risk created by grounding an entire airline would be a huge job in itself? So how could QF have a board meeting (not a planned safety meeting) but a board meeting Saturday, and somehow they have managed to carry out a robust risk assessment as they said they did, to come to the conclusion of grounding an entire airline, in such a short period of time?? It would have to be a miracle and a world record assessment, and who undertook the assessment, who signed it off? It would take stakeholder input from a number of key departments to undertake such an assessment? Also, where is the documented evidence, paperwork, plans, figures, data etc etc that was used in the assessment process? Certainly, should the assessment be found to be inferior, deficient, inconsistent
and of a nature that is totally inadequate - Penalty, 1 RCA.
Please Senator Xenophon, media, the public and all staff - Dig deep, ask the in-depth questions, put these individuals under the microscope, squeeze squeeze.
Was this safety event reported to the ATSB and CASA?
If yes, did CASA do anything?
Or is this more 'mental reservation'!!
Mr Wobbles,
There was no lockout. Aircraft were grounded only. Work as normal during the aircraft grounding.
This was a direction from the management that caused the shutdown of the airline.
To even suggest that any engineer would sabotage their own aircraft is to have nothing but contempt for them.
I just hope that the results of the alleged AFP investigation are made public.
I don't remember hearing about the outcome of the "death threats" investigation.:suspect:
I have nothing but respect for Quantas (putting the u back in Qantas) staff its the board & its cronies, I take um-bridge to maybe they could give the westpac board some advice as it looks like they are now taking the same road.
There was never a u in QANTAS ever to have had to put it back.
Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services
QANTAS is but the first company to try out the FWA in the manner it did. All the major corporations will be watching closely to see how this pans out. If it is found in QF's favour, watch the flood gates open on the major corporations doing the same thing and holding not only the government to ransom, but the Australian public and the Australian workforce.
As has been slated before. The dispute from the engineers, pilots and TWU members was not so much about wages as it is about keeping jobs in Australia. That just doesn't apply to QANTAS employees. We just happened to have enough unions and people involved to make a stand against a board that had an insatiable appetite to move as many jobs offshore so as to justify the shrinking of QANTAS and groqing JQ at the expense of it.
The government is in a delicate position. Give in to the corporates and they have betrayed the workforce that they once represented. Give in to the workforce, and the corporates will send everything offshore.
theheadmaster
3rd Nov 2011, 02:51
I think he knows there is no 'u' in Qantas, he was being funny. The 'u', when read out loud is the same as 'you'. A slight re-wording of the 'there is no "u" (you) in Qantas joke; that the company does not give a stuff about its employees.
Short_Circuit
3rd Nov 2011, 04:09
No u because u have been outsourced and are now redundant. :ouch:
airsupport
3rd Nov 2011, 04:35
IF Qantas management were so worried about this, what actions did they take to check all their aircraft.....
Fairly simple and obvious answer to that question. ;)
Why would they need to check any other aircraft IF they knew how did it to this one aircraft. :ok:
No u because u have been outsourced and are now redundant. http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/shiner.gif
Not yet I haven't, and not yet I'm not. I've got a while to go yet. I might even be closing the door behind AJ on his way out. He can take his $5million and get out of QANTAS. He can go and head JQ Asia.
Ken Borough
3rd Nov 2011, 06:23
Does anyone here seriously believe that Management would interfere with an aircraft as has been suggested by a couple of posters? I guess you also believe it was Management who clogged waste drains on a B744 that had problems going into Bangkok?
Short_Circuit
3rd Nov 2011, 06:34
Does anyone here seriously believe that Management would interfere with an aircraft as has been suggested by a couple of posters? I guess you also believe it was Management who clogged waste drains on a B744 that had problems going into Bangkok? So you are suggesting engineers would have done it? I think you will be let down when the actual non event is reported by AFP.
clogged waste drains on a B744 that had problems going into Bangkok?
We all know that cheep maintenance was a cause here.
Ken Borough
3rd Nov 2011, 06:50
SC
Don't verbal me. Instead,you should read again what I wrote. Just to make myself clear,I did not make any suggestion as to who may be the culprit.
Oh God Ken the Planespotter is back.
Would of been a bit quiet on the scanner on the weekend Ken?
OchreOgre
3rd Nov 2011, 11:35
"I can't stand it I know you planned it
I'm gonna set it straight, this watergate
I can't stand rocking when I'm in here
Because your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear
So while you sit back and wonder why
I got this fxxxxxg thorn in my side
Oh my, it's a mirage
I'm tellin' y'all it's sabotage"
Lyrics from my good friends, and yours, the Beastie Boys.
tail wheel
3rd Nov 2011, 11:59
Behave! :=
There are enough porkies coming from the company and politicians. If you guys start too I won't know who to believe! :{
gobbledock
3rd Nov 2011, 12:20
Awww c'mon tailwheel, don't be a spoil sport, can't we play with Ken just a little, pretty please? I promise I won't do what I normally do and that is get Ken so angry he writes nasty PM's to me threatening legal action!!
However, to be fair, for Ken to have to watch his idols, QF management, endure so much criticism would be most distressing, infuriating, vilifying and just plain nasty, so for that reason, and that reason only Ken, I will cut you some slack. In fact, I am giving you an 'imaginary cuddle' and simply say 'keep your chin up old pal'.
I pinky promise, on this thread, not to outwit, outsmart or outdo you, I promise. X