Bad Week for QF?
 

737 Bird strike at Broome

737 Bird strike enroute Darwin - Bali!

767 Grounded at Darwin due undercarriage problem

Gee Dog One, an aircraft having a bird strike or two.
How bloody unusual!

Sounds a whole load better than having your timetable reduced by over 50% due to a virus (SQ/CX), or sickness by F/A's causing reduced crew and the airline not being able to sell up to several hundred seats in a day (DJ) or your largest domestic type being grounded at Easter and Christmas by CASA and shortly thereafter going out of business (AN).

Bird strikes are an operational hazzard Dog One and no one is immune.
Same with aircraft breaking down, its going to happen and does so when you least expect it.

Gee I wonder if trains,buses and automobiles ever have mechanical problems or ever hit animals/pedestrians!

What about lightning strikes? :E

No big deal Dr Phil. Dog one simply posted some stats. Timmee went and got all emotional about it. Dog one did not pass judgement or make any derogatory comment.

A QF 737 lost an engine in CNS a few weeks ago just after t/o after taking out some bats.. I am interested to know at what stage of t/o and how many bats actually went through the engine. Not interetsted in blame, one upman ship or any other child like slant. Just like to know what happened and how the lads dealt with it (besides that it was obviously sucessful).

Some guys I spoke to who checked out the damage said the engine was nothing short of a mess.

Dog One,

Did you miss them rumour that a certain extreemly high profile boss got the secretary in the family way, MJ is not happy.

No confirmation, but this would make for a bad week!

I think it was only one bat. In fact both the Darwin and Cairns "bird"strikes a couple of weeks ago, which both caused well in excess of $2m (each) in repair bills alone, were caused by bat-like creatures. One was a flying fox, the other a fruitbat.

At the risk of raising both Timmee's and Dr Phil's blood pressure, a colleague has faxed me a copy of the report on the Bali strike as written by the NT News.

This is no rumour - a croc was not involved. How-ever the following is a quote from the News article (Fri 3rd Oct).

"ENGINE HIT IN FLIGHT

A Qantas plane is undergoing emergency repairs to one of its engines after it hit a bird less than an hour into a flight from Darwin to Bali yesterday (Thurs 2nd Oct)

The Qantas 737-400 with 57 customers on board, took off from Darwin shortly after midnight yesterday.

Within its first hour a bird flew into one of the engines - causing damage to the blades.

The plane continued to denpasar without incident. Yesterday it was still undergoing repairs there, new blades are being flown to Denpasar."

I await your learned comments!

A Bid strike "within the first hour". What sort of bird gets around at flight levels?

Succatash,
Suggest you check your source as your version of the story is far from true and defamatory.

Was the bird pressurised?

Drop-down oxygen, perhaps??
Apparently, it was Command Training (of course)- a/c continued to Bali, three fan blades were apparently fairly damaged.
QF 767 did an RTO at CNS yesterday- it later continued onto SYD.

Bird strikes at altitude!!!I remember the news footage of a Panam 74 that hit a snow goose at flight level 330.Radome was rather,Um pucked

gottom 2 dollar

Was the goose operating VFR in E airspace, or was it on a IFR plan?

I think Eagles get pretty high. I've heard of a BAW 744 hitting one at FL370 over the WA coast. Dunno how much truth there is to that though.

Aside from that, I was in the Karratha MBZ one time at 8500' and saw an eagle above me, at least 1500' - 2000' or so. He hadn't broadcasted his intentions prior to entry, though, so lucky I wasn't 1500' - 2000' higher. (!)



520.

POTO

Just as a matter of interest, some migatory birds do in fact fly in the flight level band to make the best of winds etc:

Most Air Forces are very much aware of the possible conflicts with birds at high altitudes and in fact generally know when to expect such possible encounters.

Can we get through one week without some incident or other disaster at Qantas? It would appear not. Where there's smoke there will soon be fire.

The Associated Press

See the Kiwis do it as well, seems the birds are in revolt with
you guys taking over their airspace.

Forced landing after bird hits plane
From correspondents in Wellington, New Zealand
October 9, 2003

AN Air New Zealand airplane with 83 passengers and seven crew on board made an emergency landing today after hitting a bird, officials said. Nobody was injured.

The Auckland-bound Boeing 737-300 was leaving the city of Dunedin on South Island "when it appears to have taken a magpie in one engine", said airline spokesman Mike Tod.

The pilot closed down the engine and circled Dunedin before landing without incident shortly after 11am local time, he said.

Airline engineers will assess the damage to the jet engine later today and make repairs, the spokesman said.

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Jetstar21 Thanks for the correction.
Almost nailed a bunch of Gallahs the other day on T/O all of whom were on there way to Bali for some recently uncrowded waves.:p :ok:

Hoodooguru,

What an informed and well balanced post! If two birdstikes in a week constitute a "disaster" then you must be a very nervous flyer.

Three Bars. Birds don't make me nervous but evacuating a 400 at a gate while people are already making an orderly departure and grounding other 400's because they were bought on the cheap and are cracked and never having got a proper ETOPS approval are certainly points for concern don't you think. Shall I go on?