Jetstar B717 Evacuation Hobart
 

Sparks and smoke spotted from a Jetstar Boeing 717 engine led to passengers evacuating the plane on a safety slide at Hobart Airport today.

The pilot of Jetstar flight JQ72 was powering-up the engines shortly before a scheduled 6am take-off when an engineer on the tarmac advised the pilot of the potentially dangerous situation.

"The captain initiated an evacuation of the aircraft," Jetstar's corporate relations manager, Simon Westaway, said.

"The passengers were disembarked via a safety slide just under the right-hand wing," he said.

The plane, which can carry up to 125 passengers, had 25 passengers on board at the time on the scare.

Three passengers reported minor injuries as a result of the evacuation but all were able to proceed to Sydney on board a Qantas flight.

The Air Safety Transport Bureau is investigating the incident but says it is too early to speculate on the cause.



On the contrary, it's never too early to speculate!!!


Hey Simon, why do they put the slide UNDER the wing???Always a serious risk in any evacuation. Big balls on the captain for making the decision. Very big balls. Well done.

I hope they were business class, otherwise there wouldn't be much money to go around after I took my share...

25 passengers. Hey, great load factor.

Scrubed - with great headlines such as yours perhaps you should be working as one of those trashy journo's that attempts to instill fear into the public and sensationalises everything.

Would not a posting of say, " Passengers and crew evacuate Jetstar aircraft" be slightly more professional than your Murdochesque attempt at humour?

Dunno Bloggs, maybe you were better off with the hairdryers :ouch:

More accurate reporting
 

...the story without the BS....

Three passengers reported minor injuries after using the safety slide to evacuate the plane, Mr Westaway said.

A blown starter motor is believed to have been the cause of the emergency.


Mr Westaway said officers from the Air Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) were on site to assess the aircraft, but a blown starter motor was the early diagnosis.

The ATSB is expected to finish its inquiry late today.

Cunning,

We shall see! At least the swinebat's got 4! :bored: Even they don't blow up with regular monotony (any more)...

Yeah but let's talk about 4-engined gliders.......

:yuk: 10000 apologies, Oh Wise One. I shall consult prior to each and every subsequent post. :rolleyes:

Meanwhile please direct me to the post where I claimed to be a professional, qualified journalist, if there is such a thing.

No wonder some people were injured.:rolleyes:

A "blown" starter motor? Of course its "blown" do you think they mean a disintegrated starter?

Sorry scrubed, but I can't see the connection between the article & any Jet* crew running away either.:confused: Now if your thread heading was "Jet* crew choose evacuation instead of potentially life threatening "take it like a man" scenario" then there may have been a wry titter...somewhere.

a blown starter??? Don't they start via bleed air from the APU?

Yeah, they do use bleed air from a bleed source - not always necessarily the APU.

It's called a start valve (as opposed to a starter motor) and every so often they come apart. We had one disintegrate once on '400. Lots of sparks and smoke reported by the dispatch engineer, but dissipated very quickly after start aborted.

The Captain on the 717 could only base his/her decisions on the description given to him/her by the guy on the ground with the headset. All's well that ends well.
:ok:

Scrubed, it's pritty obvious that you are a typical "VERANDER PILOT" or a journo. The Captain having big balls to order the evacuation, you have to be kidding ? SOP's and common sense, would have been the basis for Captain making the decision on this one.

I agree Wahgi.

It seems that Scrubed fits into either of those categories perfectly.

I suppose if he was covering or writing a story about the British Midlands crash some years back he would have said something along the lines of "gutless individuals flee flaming inferno".

I reackon that if anyone was seriously injured or even killed he would have made such a brain-dead and immature headline.

RAA
Are you sure it was a start valve, the start valve on most aircraft control pneumatics to the starter, if the valve remains open after engine start it can cause the starter to self destruct unless you act quickly and carry out the non normal procedure.

VTM

I thought Jet* didn't have engineers at Hobart.

Bully

You thought wrong

Timmmmeeee those words perfectly sum up your decision to name yourself after a mentally retarded cartoon character so be careful about throwing stones. Did you really think that would be side-splittingly funny to everyone on PPRUNE??? You think it's funny being mentally handicapped? Is that it? If so you may just be as pathetic as the people who choose to make fun of the wheelchair-bound, mentally challenged on TV. But that is your problem.

Woghi Warrior, I find it amusing you try to insult me with "Verander Pilot" yet you are unable to even spell "Verandah" correctly. "Pritty obvious"??? You're not the only pilot who has less than average comprehension of spelling, grammar and syntax, though, so don't feel bad.

What you may want to reconsider is casting aspersions on my own status. During my command training on jets it was impressed upon me the sheer magnitude of a decision to evacuate passengers. In your haste to rubbish me with your spelling mistakes, the fact may have escaped you that 3 out of 25 passengers reported injuries during this event.

In case your simple arithmetic is as woeful as your spelling of a simple word like "verandah", I will help you out: that equals exactly .... um, let's see... 12%. If the aircraft had been full, it might be expected to have been (another tough one for you Woghi) 15 people with injuries. Now they may have been only minor injuries but that doesn't mean this J* pilot did not take the possibility into consideration when making the decision to hit the slides.

Example: In the airline I work for, a tailpipe fire, alone, is not a cause for immediate evacuation without further consideration unless it is getting much worse. This J* incident might have been a lot worse, who could tell at that exact moment? Here are some of the things a captain might consider:

Is this a tailpipe fire? Or worse?
How can I be sure?
What is happening back there?
What can the engineer see?
Is he describing it accurately? Do I take his word for it?
Is it a fire or just smoke?
Is fuel burning?
Should we put an extinguisher into it?
Should we evacuate and risk injuries or stay put?
Which SLIDES should we use to evacuate?
Are there STAIRS nearby or will that take too long?
How far away are the RFF?
WhattodoWhattodoWhattodoWhat
If in doubt, geddem OUT.

And this captain was probably thinking about more than just the above.

You may not have a clue, Woghi and Timmeeeee, so I'll point it out for you - Making a decision to evacuate passengers is a f***ing big decision, even if only 25 pax. Woghi, there's a lot more to it than just automatically hitting the EVAC signal or whatever they use. If you are not yet a captain, it's a good thing as you have a lot to learn. By the way, no apostrophe required in "SOPs", Woghi.

Now this captain elected to evacuate and I am not questioning that decision. This J* captain had a LOT to think about and I admire him (or her) for having the balls to do what (s)he did. I have no doubt the entire event was handled with the utmost in Airmanship and professionalism.

Try to see past the obviously failed attempt at ironic humour, lads. It may "embiggen" you somewhat.

In hindsight it was not the smartest thing to use that thread title and I apologise if it offended anyone, especially the crew involved whom I would buy a beer anytime just to hear the story and hopefully learn something from their experience.

I changed the headline to keep the whingers happy but the thread title is stuck. I know the mods can alter this if they want to...

Srubed,
Please don't scrape the bottom of the barrel like so many that think they are accosted here and pick out people's syntax, spelling and grammar. It is so incredibly childish, futile, and only serves to weaken your argument since you are padding out what you DON'T have in a retaliatory response.

The title you chose "Jetstar crew run away..." gave me visions of limp wristed FA's wailing and screaming, with flailing arms running around the apron, leaving passengers to their own devices :p

If one needs to resort to criticisizing a respondee's lack of typing and proof reading skills, then one should look for better and more succinct answers...