Qantas A330-300 Turbulence Incident Over Borneo
 

Quoting the 'West Australian' 45 mins ago on Website

Six passengers and one crew have been injured on a Qantas flight bound for Perth. The A330-300 aircraft, similar to the ill-fated Air France airbus that crashed over the Atlantic Ocean on May 31, was en route to Perth from Hong Kong this morning when it struck “severe turbulence” over Borneo.
A spokesman said a “medical person” on board had advised the pilot to proceed after examining the injured.
It understood pilot Brett Flack, an airman with more than 14,500 flying hours, reported damage to overhead panels and to oxygen masks.
The flight, with 206 passengers and 13 crew on board, has just landed at Perth International Airport. A number of ambulances are waiting on the tarmac, along with Qantas support team. Unquote

Note: original article says 'damage two oxygen masks - assume this to be a journalistic error but it may be correct reporting

Wow, wonder how did they get Flacky's name so fast.....

This might be legit turbulence as opposed to faulty AIRDU induced turbulence.....

It certainly sounds like severe turbulence - passengers speaking of 'people flying around the cabin' but given that the injuries are reported as not serious then it may not have been as bad as that sounds, although bad enough no doubt. Passengers describing it like 'dropping off a 30-storey building'. Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigating, but Qantas stating ' no reason to link the incident to other recent in-flight incidents involving A330 aircraft'

Seems to be a rash of severe turbulence incidents lately...
 

It would be a very interesting and possibly illuminating exercise to collect recent occurrences of said severe turbulence incidents and plot the airlines, aircraft and routes involved. :8

cffdg
 

Good evening,

pretty much the same happened to TAM A330 de 26 of May.

Três feridos em vôo que sofreu queda brusca estão internados -

21 injured, 3 seriously.

Taffazzi

Very large, powerful convective cells over Borneo. We avoid them like the plague..100nm deviations not unheard of, although 20-40nm more common!
True to say though...often, the cloud surrounding these cells may appear benign, but, the same type of radar returns have completely different characteristics of turbulence, from one cloud to the next!
Best to give a wide berth.
No inference that the Qantas crew were doing other than this, is intended!

Clear air or CB related?
:ooh:

Oleo - the pilot is being quoted by most sources as saying that the turbulence 'did not show on the radar' - not that the 'radar wasn't working'

Clear air turbulence cant be detected by current doppler radar installed in aircraft.

Its amazing how the media assumes this means the radar wasn't working.:ugh:

Version 2

Maybe large portion of first time flyers on board!
How do we convince them to keep seat belt fastened whilst seated!
American crews frequent use of seatbelt sign may be the way although in my mind it becomes as useful as a warning that isn't canceled..ceases to become a deterrent and goes un-noticed after short time!

Perth
 

I flew into Perth last night from Singapore on SQ215, also A330. about midway between java and northern australia, captain announced "rapid changes in wind direction" and sat the crew. moderate clear air turbulence but even on the air show, the wind was alternately displayed as 100km headwind/100km tail wind. after about 10 mins we decended from fl370 to fl 350 and the ride became much smoother. the qf flight was all over the tv/radio news this am. that particular area, java/borneo and the area north of the oz mainland is very unpredictable...

oh, and there were people headed to the toilets while the flight attendants were still strapped in!

Extracted from statement by Qantas spokesman David Epstein:

..."The aircraft most likely encountered what is known as convective turbulence, which led to it rapidly gaining around 800 feet in altitude before returning to its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet,"...

...Although some media reports had suggested the aircraft was travelling through thunderstorms at the time of Monday's incident, there was no evidence of this....

...There is nothing to link the aircraft to anything untoward...

Unquote

Presumably part of the 'return to the cruising altitude of 38,000 feet' must have been somewhat rapid judging by the many reports from passengers of a 'plunge' and people hitting their heads on the ceiling.

The 'West Australian' reports that two air safety authority investigators have inspected the plane & downloaded Flight recorder data.

Nasty conditions over central Borneo as seen in this satellite image from evening of 21st. June at 1800Z
Believe schedule departure from HKG was 21st,1535Z(2335local)

http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/geobrows...&grid=1&size=2

Initial media reports on the A330 with the uncooperative ADIRUs into Learmonth (VH QPA) - were that it hit severe turbulence.

You know when they say keep your belt fastened - well they aren't joking. - And while I'm at it. Keep it on until you get to the terminal. I was on a 737 which made a rapid stop on a taxiway, and it was like hitting a brick wall - as the guy in front of me found out as he was propelled into the seat in front.:ok:

AR1, fully agree with you..
 

the only useful posting in that otherwise useless thread..

PAX need more discipline and should have their seatbelts tight from blocks off to blocks on..

as long as that does not become the norm we will always have injured and in extremis dead pax due to turbulence..

it's as simple and sad as that

Passengers described it like falling off a 30 floor building? How many people
know what it feels like to fall off a 30 floor building and live to tell the tale?
:ugh::ugh::ugh:

In the last week I've flown that route 4 times and each time we diverted up to 60 NM off track, no big deal. The CB's and larger convective clouds were quite clear on the Radar and we avoided them. :ok:

You do need to be very pro-active with the radar tilt, gain and range.
It is very easy to miss a small cell and for 5 to 10 seconds "run into a small isolated cloud top" by mistake. Most of us have been there and done it, it's just that on those occasions nobody was injured.

Just another reminder to be very careful whilst avoiding WX in IMC ( day or night )

My understanding is that the turbulance occurred 4 hours into a 7 1/2 hour flight. It is perfectly reasonable to expect 6 passengers of 206 to be out of their seats midflight, perhaps answering nature's call or stretching (as you should do to prevent emboli). Alright, at least one of these six were seated and decided the seatbelt was too much hassle (Vicky, see link below). However, I have noticed over the last fifteen years an increasing proportion of the passengers I have had seated in my vicinity keep their belts on when seated, to the point now where I cannot remember the last time I saw someone who decided to leave it undone. So the message is getting through, but there will always be morons!

The scare-mongers are out in full-force for this incident. The first article I saw was in the Daily Mail (don't ask). Don't forget to click link to see dramatic footage of the Air France wreckage! *sigh*:

New Airbus plunge leaves seven injured as Qantas passengers smash into ceiling

Passengers, crew and loose articles were thrown towards the ceiling as the aircraft suddenly dropped, an experience that some likened to 'falling into a hole'.

One of the people to hit the ceiling was mother Vicky Richards, from Rockingham, south of Perth, who was with a group of family and friends returning from a holiday in Hong Kong.

Miss Elsie Hudson, who was part of the group, said Vicky was not wearing a seat belt when the aircraft ran into heavy turbulence.

'There was this massive drop and Vicky who was with us, didn't have a seat belt on, hit the roof, the console, and she actually cracked it and took one of the light covers off,' said Miss Hudson.

'She was in a lot of pain in the end,' Miss Hudson told The Australian when the plane landed. 'Her headache progressed worse and worse and her neck got worse and worse and by the end she couldn't move.'
Miss Richards was taken to hospital with suspected head and neck injuries.

Miss Hudson said the captain, Paul Flack, informed passengers as they were landing in Perth that the Airbus had run into a storm which the radars had not picked up

'He said because of the temperature issue, crystals sometimes form on the instruments that pick up the radars, that pick up the clouds.

'Apparently it didn't pick it up until they were in it.'

Another man received a cut on his head when he hit the ceiling. Other passengers not wearing seat belts were also thrown from their seats.

Although a storm is being blamed for the sudden plunge, air safety investigators have begun a thorough inquiry, aware that the aircraft is the same type as the doomed Air France jet.

'It was a severe meteorological incident,' said Mr David Epstein, Qantas' corporate affairs manager.

ACL1011.....

first time post....on PPRUNe....:confused:

It seems that Airbus is going to have to do a good job of PR to get the publics confidence back. Every incident of the A330 is being reported.

My question is, what can Airbus do to restore confidence with the flying public?

Thanks,
RP

They can keep quiet and tend to their busness of serving their customers, the airlines.

It's the collective job of the airlines to minimze fright to their passengers. They can do this best by addressing specific passenger concerns.

I don't have any specific concerns, do you?