Qantas Drama...
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The A330 has a cargo fire extinguishing system. There hasn't been any mention of whether this was used or not. Considering it is an enclosed space, its use may or may influence an evacuation decision. Airbus cargo detection systems can be sensitive. I've had one go off on the ground with the door wide open as a ground vehicle drove past the door.
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El lute
The doors on the TriStar rocket up into the a/c skin when the emergency system is activated, they are on a big spring! In the case of the Saudia TriStar I believe the problem was compounded by the aircraft not being fully de-pressurised, so the doors couldn't open.
There are numerous theories, including a dyslexic FE unable to read the check-list, the captain didn't want to stop because a Royal Flight was waiting to depart, etc. etc.
There are numerous theories, including a dyslexic FE unable to read the check-list, the captain didn't want to stop because a Royal Flight was waiting to depart, etc. etc.
Last edited by BlueEagle; 24th Aug 2005 at 11:58.
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Righto, my 2 bob worth. Just an opinion, not adding any new info.
News reports say the tower advised the crew that they saw smoke.
In my limited experience, where's there's smoke, there's frequently fire. If smoke (possibly indicatig a fire) is visible emanating from a (largely sealed) aircraft, which has just diverted due to a smoke (or heat) warning, it's probably a fair thing to assume that the source of the smoke/heat has somehow beached the integrity of the hull. Such things have a habit of spreading, well, like wildfire.
Good on 'em. Hark back to the 2003 QF 744 arrival in Sydney where the skipper evacuated the a/c after a groundie reported an undercarriage fire. Again, good call. Pity about the wearer of the high heels...
Personally, I'd want out of such smoke incidents asap and would be asking questions if I wasn't shown the door pdq. Sorry for the injuries, but it's better to be hobbling for a while than toast.
News reports say the tower advised the crew that they saw smoke.
In my limited experience, where's there's smoke, there's frequently fire. If smoke (possibly indicatig a fire) is visible emanating from a (largely sealed) aircraft, which has just diverted due to a smoke (or heat) warning, it's probably a fair thing to assume that the source of the smoke/heat has somehow beached the integrity of the hull. Such things have a habit of spreading, well, like wildfire.
Good on 'em. Hark back to the 2003 QF 744 arrival in Sydney where the skipper evacuated the a/c after a groundie reported an undercarriage fire. Again, good call. Pity about the wearer of the high heels...
Personally, I'd want out of such smoke incidents asap and would be asking questions if I wasn't shown the door pdq. Sorry for the injuries, but it's better to be hobbling for a while than toast.
Evertonian
If there was an inquiry or anything, I'd show up with a photo of the AF A340 & the time it took for that aircraft to be destroyed!
No brainer really. Job well done.
No brainer really. Job well done.
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Hi!
I was operating on this flight from Narita. The comments that Travel Thickeness said in a previous post on page one is completely incorrect. If you would like clarification of what happened in this situation, please private message me and i'll be more than happy to answer within the limits i'm allowed. The crew did a fantastic job and i wouldn't change anything if it had to happen again.
A note to everyone, please don't post information claiming to be facts if you don't know they're facts, otherwise you will really offend someone.
Oz
I was operating on this flight from Narita. The comments that Travel Thickeness said in a previous post on page one is completely incorrect. If you would like clarification of what happened in this situation, please private message me and i'll be more than happy to answer within the limits i'm allowed. The crew did a fantastic job and i wouldn't change anything if it had to happen again.
A note to everyone, please don't post information claiming to be facts if you don't know they're facts, otherwise you will really offend someone.
Oz
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Well said. Don't have to know much or read much to see that this was promptly and safely handled. We shouldn't even talk about % of "false"warning etc. A warning is a warning and until the QRH has some troubleshooting pages, we have NO CHOICE but to treat it as real. Unless someone could convince me that this QF crew could have landed even sooner, I'd say they did exactly what every passenger would have wanted.
well done.
well done.
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Now if there were any creative cabin crew, they could have grabbed all the bags left on board (now lost property) the aircraft and auctioned them off !! Just like they do in Jetstar Coolangata!
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The following is a cut and paste from crikey.com re QANTAS's cost cutting measures-
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Is Qantas compromising its passengers' safety by cost-cutting?
Crikey Daily - Wednesday, 24 August
Crikey received this tip from an anonymous subscriber:
It is a requirement of Japanese law that all foreign air carriers, operating into and out of Japan must have a Japanese language speaker as part of the crew complement. Qantas have as a matter of course, over the past 18 months or so been operating into and out of Japan with domestic crews. Historically these crews are not language qualified. I am led to believe that the Qantas crew involved in this week's emergency disembarkation in Japan didn't have a Japanese language speaker as part of the crew complement. The PAs to passengers were made by a holidaying Qantas employee. If this is the case, Qantas has violated its agreement on flying into and out of Japan.
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That's a pretty serious accusation against Qantas following the recent emergency landing in Osaka where nine people were injured. The plane, carrying 178 passengers and 13 crew, was on its way from Tokyo to Perth when it diverted to Osaka.
So did Qantas contravene Japanese law? No, says Geoffrey Tudor, director of public relations at Japan Airlines, telling us that there is "no legal requirement – under Japanese aviation law – for Qantas or any foreign airline to have Japanese speaking crew."
But in another respect, our tipster seems to be on the money – the recent emergency landing and subsequent passenger evacuation was apparently "anything but usual," an ex-Qantas exec tells Crikey. "I have it on very good authority" that a "non crew member on board gave the emergency evacuation PA after landing, where the predominantly Japanese passengers were herded out of the aircraft via the slides."
Why wasn't there a bilingual crew member on hand to assist Japanese passengers? We called Qantas, where a spokesman called Lloyd (he wouldn't give his last name) told us that there had been a fluent Japanese speaker on board. In a follow up call, we asked Lloyd whether this person was a member of the flight's crew? The answer: no. On this particular flight, he said, the normal Japanese speaker was ill, and wasn't on board. So it was another Qantas crew member – not assigned to the flight – who stepped in.
Had this stand-in not been available, however, would Qantas have left its Japanese passengers in the dark? When asked if Qantas always has a local speaker on board, Lloyd told us that it wasn't Qantas policy per se. Instead, it's a "matter of course" – and Qantas "aims to have" a fluent speaker on board. So if a Japanese speaker hadn't been available on the day, Japanese passengers could have been left without a guide.
In fact, says our ex-Qantas exec, Qantas "used to employ Japanese Flight Attendants based in Japan who flew on the route for both customer services reasons eg helping Japanese passengers fill in immigration entry cards for Australia, and for safety reasons. Being Japanese Cabin Crew, these crew were fully trained in all safety and emergency evacuations procedures on a regular basis." So why is this no longer the case? "Simple, cost cutting of the like still being advocated by Dixon and Dame Margaret!!" Ah well, he says, "as long as no shareholders on-board were inconvenienced then I guess it was OK (not)."
------------------
Qantas- "Shareholder returns and executive bonuses at ALL cost".
------------------
Is Qantas compromising its passengers' safety by cost-cutting?
Crikey Daily - Wednesday, 24 August
Crikey received this tip from an anonymous subscriber:
It is a requirement of Japanese law that all foreign air carriers, operating into and out of Japan must have a Japanese language speaker as part of the crew complement. Qantas have as a matter of course, over the past 18 months or so been operating into and out of Japan with domestic crews. Historically these crews are not language qualified. I am led to believe that the Qantas crew involved in this week's emergency disembarkation in Japan didn't have a Japanese language speaker as part of the crew complement. The PAs to passengers were made by a holidaying Qantas employee. If this is the case, Qantas has violated its agreement on flying into and out of Japan.
Advertisement
That's a pretty serious accusation against Qantas following the recent emergency landing in Osaka where nine people were injured. The plane, carrying 178 passengers and 13 crew, was on its way from Tokyo to Perth when it diverted to Osaka.
So did Qantas contravene Japanese law? No, says Geoffrey Tudor, director of public relations at Japan Airlines, telling us that there is "no legal requirement – under Japanese aviation law – for Qantas or any foreign airline to have Japanese speaking crew."
But in another respect, our tipster seems to be on the money – the recent emergency landing and subsequent passenger evacuation was apparently "anything but usual," an ex-Qantas exec tells Crikey. "I have it on very good authority" that a "non crew member on board gave the emergency evacuation PA after landing, where the predominantly Japanese passengers were herded out of the aircraft via the slides."
Why wasn't there a bilingual crew member on hand to assist Japanese passengers? We called Qantas, where a spokesman called Lloyd (he wouldn't give his last name) told us that there had been a fluent Japanese speaker on board. In a follow up call, we asked Lloyd whether this person was a member of the flight's crew? The answer: no. On this particular flight, he said, the normal Japanese speaker was ill, and wasn't on board. So it was another Qantas crew member – not assigned to the flight – who stepped in.
Had this stand-in not been available, however, would Qantas have left its Japanese passengers in the dark? When asked if Qantas always has a local speaker on board, Lloyd told us that it wasn't Qantas policy per se. Instead, it's a "matter of course" – and Qantas "aims to have" a fluent speaker on board. So if a Japanese speaker hadn't been available on the day, Japanese passengers could have been left without a guide.
In fact, says our ex-Qantas exec, Qantas "used to employ Japanese Flight Attendants based in Japan who flew on the route for both customer services reasons eg helping Japanese passengers fill in immigration entry cards for Australia, and for safety reasons. Being Japanese Cabin Crew, these crew were fully trained in all safety and emergency evacuations procedures on a regular basis." So why is this no longer the case? "Simple, cost cutting of the like still being advocated by Dixon and Dame Margaret!!" Ah well, he says, "as long as no shareholders on-board were inconvenienced then I guess it was OK (not)."
------------------
Qantas- "Shareholder returns and executive bonuses at ALL cost".
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Well they got everyone out without killing anyone which has to be good! I don't know the whole facts so I am not in any position to question the crews actions but will add a bit of info which might be of interest.
If the smoke detectors are like in our 330s they are optical and not heat/ionistaion activated. We frequently have spurious warnings with anything from humid conditions to mangoes decomposing to blame. Mostly we are lucky because the hold is still open but sometimes that is not the case. If there is a warning, the cargo fire extinguishing fires one bottle into the hold when actioned and then (for ETOPS cert) meters in another bottle of extinguishent over the next few hours.
On the ground, a school of thought has that it is better to taxi in, get the pax off and then open the holds to check. In the air, so the line of thought goes, it becomes much more of a coin toss as to what you should do after landing. But coz of that bast*rd, Mr Harry Hindsight, I guess you will be damned if you do and damned if you don't! For me I am delighted that we didn't add any more fatalities to what has already been a horrendous month in aviation.
Cerberus
If the smoke detectors are like in our 330s they are optical and not heat/ionistaion activated. We frequently have spurious warnings with anything from humid conditions to mangoes decomposing to blame. Mostly we are lucky because the hold is still open but sometimes that is not the case. If there is a warning, the cargo fire extinguishing fires one bottle into the hold when actioned and then (for ETOPS cert) meters in another bottle of extinguishent over the next few hours.
On the ground, a school of thought has that it is better to taxi in, get the pax off and then open the holds to check. In the air, so the line of thought goes, it becomes much more of a coin toss as to what you should do after landing. But coz of that bast*rd, Mr Harry Hindsight, I guess you will be damned if you do and damned if you don't! For me I am delighted that we didn't add any more fatalities to what has already been a horrendous month in aviation.
Cerberus
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Blueloo,
all passengers retrieved ALL belongings from the aircraft at a later date with no complaints of personal items going missing, so nothing was in lost property.
Jettlager,
yes there was a language speaker on board which went ill in Narita, so a paxing japanese speaking F/A was used. What would be the case if you had 2 or even 3 language speakers onboard and they all went sick from food poisoning or something, you would use your resources and use a passenger like a tour leader etc that could speak both English and Japanese. I am made aware by a long haul CSM that she has been on numerous Japan trips with long haul crew and no language speaker, so..........
Also the evacuation was not given by a PA, it was initiated by the evacuation signal alarm which prompt crew to start the evacuation commands/process, including the paxing language speaker yelling the commands in Japanese in the cabin, because as every paxing crew member is required to assist in such a situation.
There are still about 6 QF long haul Japanese crew still based in Japan, it is all very quiet though, don't hear much about it.
Again i say, don't try and post facts when you don't know. I was on the damn flight, message me and i will tell you directly! There is no finding fault in the crew, absolutely i agree we need atleast 2 language speakers onboard and this has been expressed to management.
Oz
all passengers retrieved ALL belongings from the aircraft at a later date with no complaints of personal items going missing, so nothing was in lost property.
Jettlager,
yes there was a language speaker on board which went ill in Narita, so a paxing japanese speaking F/A was used. What would be the case if you had 2 or even 3 language speakers onboard and they all went sick from food poisoning or something, you would use your resources and use a passenger like a tour leader etc that could speak both English and Japanese. I am made aware by a long haul CSM that she has been on numerous Japan trips with long haul crew and no language speaker, so..........
Also the evacuation was not given by a PA, it was initiated by the evacuation signal alarm which prompt crew to start the evacuation commands/process, including the paxing language speaker yelling the commands in Japanese in the cabin, because as every paxing crew member is required to assist in such a situation.
There are still about 6 QF long haul Japanese crew still based in Japan, it is all very quiet though, don't hear much about it.
Again i say, don't try and post facts when you don't know. I was on the damn flight, message me and i will tell you directly! There is no finding fault in the crew, absolutely i agree we need atleast 2 language speakers onboard and this has been expressed to management.
Oz
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If you have a Smoke/Fire warning there is NO doubt! The crew reacted timely, landed and all survived!
Congratulations to all involved for a job well done.
(from a fellow professional)
Congratulations to all involved for a job well done.
(from a fellow professional)
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OZcabincrew rthank you for sharing your facts with us, and congratulations on getting all pax off.
Don't waste anymore of your energy on contradicting Jetlager; everybody who even infrequently reads the cabin crew forum knows about the quality of Jetlagers posts
and his/her never failing urge not to let the facts get in the way of a story that can make Qantas look bad.
Don't waste anymore of your energy on contradicting Jetlager; everybody who even infrequently reads the cabin crew forum knows about the quality of Jetlagers posts
and his/her never failing urge not to let the facts get in the way of a story that can make Qantas look bad.
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Ozcabincrew, I was merely taking the piss...I didnt expect QF cabin crew to do that sort of thing.....I made the remark as Jetstar Gold Coast have a regular auction of lost and found......with proceeds going to charity i presume, however, If you have the opportunity of purchasing some items at a greatly reduced price, I suspect items may spend more time becoming lost, rather than being found...............
