A Herald Sun reports says that a Qantas aircraft has run into problems while landing at Brisbane – the third incident the airline has experienced in just over three days.
The Boeing 737 flying from Sydney with 155 passengers was towed from the runway after a hydraulics failure during Sunday night’s landing.
A back-up system cut in but the plane was pulled to the terminal as a precautionary measure.
One engineering source said a “large pipe – a kind of artery” failed on the primary system.
A Qantas spokesman confirmed the incident on flight QF548, aboard a 737-800 which is a relatively new plane.
A passenger said cabin crew had confided they did not feel as safe working for the airline because they believed maintenance was being done offshore or parts were not changed as frequently as they should.
“I was told that too often too many little things were going wrong and planes were an accident just waiting to happen,” the passenger said.
A retired engineer told The Courier-Mail too many “pencil inspections” were occurring with Qantas planes.
“It involves someone ticking off a document to say something has been done when it has not,” he said.
After the Brisbane incident, staff were told not to speak out because of Friday’s adverse publicity when a jumbo jet made an emergency landing in Manilla with part of the fuselage blown away.
Passengers were starved of oxygen for several minutes after supplies were lost.
Both Qantas and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau yesterday refused to comment on claims by an aircraft engineer that oxygen was not available to the 346 passengers.
The engineer, who cannot be identified, said the three intact passenger supply cylinders vented their contents into the atmosphere after a regulator blew off the top of a fourth tank.
Passengers said several children wearing gas masks turned blue during the 10 minutes it took the plane to descend from 29,000 feet to a safe breathing level of 14,000 feet.
Blue skin is a strong indicator of lack of oxygen in the blood.
On Monday night, a Melbourne-bound Qantas plane had to return to Adelaide because doors covering the nose wheel bay did not close properly after take-off.
A Report by The Mole from The Herald Sun
