QANTAS’S reputation as the world’s safest airline took another blow last night with a passenger jet forced to make an emergency landing after an undercarriage door failed to close. The Boeing 767-338 flying from Melbourne to Adelaide was forced to turn around 20 minutes after it took off at 5.40pm and make an emergency landing at 6.15pm. The incident came only three days after a Qantas Boeing 747-400 was forced to make an emergency landing in Manila after a gaping hole was found its fuselage.
Disgruntled passengers on QF692 last night said they would refuse to fly with Qantas again following the airline’s second mid-air scare since Friday. Qantas would not say how many passengers were on board QF692, however, a Boeing 767-338 can carry up to 254 passengers. Most of the passengers were transferred onto later Qantas flights but some refused, choosing to fly with Virgin Blue, or take other means of transport. Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said the aircraft’s wheels came up after take-off but the undercarriage door would not retract. The malfunction was on the “lower end” of the danger scale. “This aircraft was not in danger at any stage, it was more of an aerodynamics issue than anything else because it would have created a lot of drag,” Mr Gibson said. A Qantas spokeswoman said last night: “The Qantas flight performed a routine air turn back shortly after takeoff due to an indication of one of the landing gear doors failing to retract.” South African tourist and QF692 passenger Gunter Kubler said he would not fly to Melbourne because of fears of flying with Qantas.
“It was absolute chaos on the plane and then they had to turn it around and bring it back to Adelaide,” he said. “They had to bring in another plane to fly people back but I don’t trust them so I will take a bus or a train to Melbourne. It’s bloody ridiculous. How am I supposed to feel safe?”
What the hell is going on? It seems fishy to me.
What would Rain Man think?
This wouldn’t have been such an issue if they hadn’t had the problem with the 747. Heck, I have been on flights all over the place, and have had all sorts of weird things that caused emergency landings. Having a door stuck open is not a reason to not fly the airline. How many people were out of luck because of American’s MD80 issues.
What is the context of this problem? How many flight in the last 12 months, word wide, have have such a problem?
Gear doors like any mechanical device break. There is a maximum speed that the plane can fly with the door in anything other than closed and it isn’t a speed that you would want to fly any distance. Plus you risk tearing up a very expensive airplane.
The worst thing that could have happened would have been the pilot exceeded that max speed and screw up the door in such a way that the gear could deploy.
It boils down to the passengers were in no danger. The pilot did what he was supposed to.
Quit your crying and get on the plane.
It could have been much worse. I’d rather have the gear door cycle fail on the “close” operation than the “open” operation.
I’m not certain about the emerg. proc. for “gear door won’t open” on the four seven, but it can’t be near as easy as “check gear down and locked, return to airport.”
GigG is right about the flight not being in danger. Just stay below V sub NE (never exceed) speed for gear down and RTB.
Agree
A gear door stuck open is a non event. It wasn’t and “emergency landing”, they just came back and landed. The plane flies the take off and the approach and landing with the gear doors open so one stuck open is not a problem.
Now that I’ve put on my tin foil hat, it does make you wonder if a competing airline wants Quantas’s routes…
Hmmm, sounds like a little bad luck to me.
I have been in the repair business for almost 25 years, including planes and medical equipment. Hello people, things break. Even things that peoples lives depend on. That’s why they have TRAINING for the pilots. So that when things do break, there is a great chnce that you are still going to be OK.
I just love how the press focuses in on the one nutjob that wants to get on camera by claiming, “By jiminy, there aint no way you are going to get me back up in one of those flying contraptions there Sonny.”
Don