Qantas faces special safety probe
 

BBC reporting

"Australian aviation authorities have announced a special review of airline Qantas, after three safety scares in little more than a week.
A Qantas 767 was forced to return to Sydney on Saturday after a fluid leak.
It followed another plane's emergency landing in Manila caused by a hole in its side, and a problem with a landing gear cover on a domestic flight.
Officials said they had no evidence of falling safety standards, but added it was "prudent" to take a closer look. "Clearly, there's been a number of incidents recently and it's important that we go in and double check and make sure that all the standards are being maintained," a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (Casa) said."

How much of a mandate CASA have in reality?? Have they knowledge a specific series of quality failings that they are going after or is it a paperwork exercise?

This is truly a knee jerk reaction to keep the mug punters out there happy. What a crock of S#1te. Quite embarassing.

Knee jerk I think, apart from the major problem we are all fully aware of I would say the other problems are, in my view "STD OPERATING INCIDENTS" that every airline goes through. I would say its more of a problem for the PR team to handle as the eyes are looking at Qantas hence, this knee jerk reaction and a "we must seem to be doing something" scenario occuring. Its clear from the amount of threads on pprune about S O P that involve Qantas, if it involved any other airline it would be in jet blast. Its sunday guys lets have a Qantas free thread day.......

Flight attendants ask Qantas to explain incidents

Aug 2 11:42 PM US/Eastern

Qantas flight attendants want assurances from management that the Australian carrier's planes are safe after a third mid-air incident in two weeks, a union official said Sunday.

Attendants are concerned about media reports about maintenance practices at Qantas and do not have the specialised knowledge to assess the incidents, said Steven Reed, president of the Flight Attendants Association of Australia.

"We want some assurances from the company that these are isolated incidents," Reed said. "We need to meet with the company at a senior level to have these assurances."

Flight attendants ask Qantas to explain incidents

Getting slightly less publicity is the fact that pilot unions have requested the same thing. Worthy of note is the fact that leaders of BOTH groups have said it is a routine enquiry and should not be seen as anything more than that.

Agree with previous comments. This is more an exercise to improve the slightly tarnished image of Qantas. The media will soon be looking elsewhere for their next bit of scintillating gossip. :hmm:

Safety "concerns"
 

I'd have thought that the Quantas "scrutiny" would also happen in the UK if BA/EZY had a string of issues. What happens is that folk who had not previously reported a concern decide to report their concerns, and a spike of reports hit whoever the regulator is...............who then has to investigate, and be seen to investigate.

This investigation is a good one. I've seen problems at america's airlines and special probes initiated.

IF QANTAS doesn't have a problem, that will come out. IF THEY NEED TO SPEND A FEW MORE BUCKS; that will come out too..

From American CNN coverage:

Australia's aviation agency launched a review of Qantas Airways' safety standards Sunday after a Manila-bound jetliner spraying hydraulic fuel made the airline's third high-profile emergency landing in eight days.

Spraying hydraulic fuel? Oh dear. Sounds terribly dangerous. Seconds from disaster!

I am ever so glad to have such capable journalistic professionals keeping me well informed about these weighty matters. I don't know how I would get along without them.

--

Sounds like QF is 'slipping' down the slope??

Or on it's way to the wall??

After 60 + years of non accidents.

SLF here, and not an engineer.

Isn't loss of hydraulic fluid a serious issue? As in...loss of landing gear, flaps, control surfaces, essential flyability of the aircraft?

Or is it a common occurrence, and not considered dangerous?

overthewing

I think the expression hydraulic fuel amused torquespanner.

Of course your term hydraulic fluid is the correct one.

To quote the above..
 

Again SLF here but.....

My work specialisation is in queueing theory and
'psudo-random / random' events.

With any business / service.

Patterns will occur and it CAN get to
a point you should worry if you don't get them.

A good example is the (UK) lottery.

If you DON'T get two consecutive numbers once in three draws
and three consecutive once every ten you could consider the draw's
impartiality.

The same applies here.

Incidents are not to a time-table and like
everything (including busses) bunch up.

I know it's not a clear explanation of what's happening, but...

I'm certain (and would put money on it) someone else can name
an airline that's had a similar presentation of.

a. Years clear..

b. 2-3 incidents in 2-3 weeks.

The math makes it inevitable.

DaveA

*Erlang B & C, Poisson / GAMMA A Process Distributions

Four two - thank you! I didn't spot that one at all.

Mind you, with Qantas' apparent maintenance issues...who knows? ;)

Well, I think this is one for the passengers to decide. I can see the bankrupcty from here.

I travelled last week 6 times with QF and was booked on QF19 on Saturday to Manila but missed the flight because my connection from BNE was late due to other issues. Let me say clearly its an airline in Melt Down. Of my six flights all departed late between 1 and 3 hours. No IFE working on my two Intercontinental segments, not important in itself but indicative. The inspection is a good thing before they kill someone. Oh and they lost my bags too....

So, by your criteria, any airline that has any sort of delay or IFE not working is about to kill someone?

i dont think that is what he is saying, "meltdown" not murder

Not that IFE problems are uncommon on any aircraft, but bad choice of system and airlines wanting all the bells and whistles (intensive customisation) on their particular aircraft, makes things worse.

When you basically have a personal computer under each seat group (1~3 seats), something, statistically, has to break down (how many times has your home computer needed a reboot?). Also, IFE system manufacturers still haven't quite grasped the fact that vibration, huge variations in temperature and spilled coffee are normal on all aircraft.

I hear that one customer was so upset that the IFE box under the seat in front of him was reducing his legroom, he repeatedly kicked it.

IFE systems are obviously not significant to the operation of the plane, but they are very customer facing. Sitting on a ten hour flight without one can be a bit of a bore, and it's easy for SLF to think if they can't get a DVD working, which they have sitting in their front room, what chance does the rest of the planes maintenance have?

I would think it could be significant when picking your next carrier.