CASA Qantas audit supressed … QF30 ricochet revealed
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The CASA special audit of Qantas has been completed and will be suppressed on the grounds of being “commercial in confidence”. Draft copies of the audit, which was called in the ‘public interest’ by the aviation safety regulator on Sunday 3 August are believed to be on their way to Qantas and the Minister for infrastructure, Anthony Albanese. It is understood Qantas will now assist CASA in refining the content and style of a mutually agreed final version of the audit, which will never see the light of day in its full form unless immense political pressure is placed on the government to release it in its entirety. CASA spokesman Peter Gibson says:
But this is not like any other audit in the history of civil aviation in Australia. It is about a frightening string of grave incidents affecting Qantas flights, and the failure of both the airline and regulator to carry out their legally enforceable obligations to ensure the completion of airworthiness directives. It concerns a break down in operational standards at Qantas that has been abundantly obvious since the latter half of last year, and is supposed to identify the reasons for massive deferrals of maintenance which critics say constitutes a dangerous abuse of the use of time limited permissible defects on aircraft to keep them in revenue service when they ought to have been under repair. If CASA cannot detect and enforce the safety regulations that apply to Australian airlines, whether nasty little killer outfits like Transair or supposedly untouchable big brands like Qantas, it is itself a danger to the safety of travellers and a very big risk to politicians who seek to shield it from exposure. CASA claims that it will in due course issue a press release or perhaps even hold a press conference in which selected or key findings of the audit are released or discussed. Maybe it can arrange with Qantas to have in attendance a full children’s chorus singing the Qantas national anthem ‘I still call Australia home’ to put the bravely inquiring media into the right frame of mind. Meanwhile… Oxygen bottle ricocheted inside QF30’s cabin The oxygen bottle that exploded in the forward hold of QF 30 and forced an emergency descent to Manila on 25 July actually ricocheted off the cabin ceiling and back through the hole it blasted in the floor before escaping out of a gaping hole in the side of the Boeing 747 just in front of the wing. The preliminary report of the ATSB inquiry into the emergency doesn’t solve the riddle as to why the bottle exploded, but it does show how serious the incident was, and how the pilots dealt with multiple systems failures in the following minutes. It describes in graphic detail by the minute what happened after a loud bang and airframe shudder was experienced when the Hong Kong-Melbourne jet with 363 people on board was 475 kilometres northwest of Manila airport. The pilots immediately lost all three instrument landing systems, several additional navigational aides and their anti-skid braking system and half the aileron (wing tip) control cables, although the alternative set remained unaffected. After calling Mayday and putting the jet into a steep dive the cabin pressure fell as low as 25,900 feet before a safe breathing altitude of 10,000 feet had been reached on the approach to the airport. The report contains easily followed diagrams and images of the blast damage. The ATSB says it will carefully review the result of a Qantas survey of all of the oxygen bottle installations and their documentation and has urged all airlines to carefully inspect and review supplementary oxygen systems. However the critical piece of evidence, the main body of the cylinder that exploded, lies somewhere on the bottom of the ocean. The inquiry continues. |
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12 Comments
Scott, I’m the Sydney Morning Herald’s last full time shipping cadet (1960-61). Not very bright, just a stubborn old hack with a strong dislike of the mongrel lying bastardry that passes for corporate and public sector communications.
Who are you?
Actually the boys at “Mythbusters”, bless their hearts, have done a show testing exactly this question, namely, whether knocking the valve off a cylinder of compressed gas can produce a stream of excaping gas of sufficient force to make that cylinder take off like a rocket. After their usual fabrications to break off the valve assembly and a channel to guide the cylinder, they succeeded in punching a hole through a cement block wall. So it is entirely plausible, though the cylinder didn’t “explode”, somehow the valve broke off. The question is the how?
Gibson says ‘its just like any other audit report’.
Except ‘It is understood Qantas will now assist CASA in refining the content and style of a mutually agreed final version of the audit,’ if this is true (can this be substantiated Ben) where else do here of the auditee finalising the audit report? Would the ACCC or ATSB allow this? Has anybody else who has been audited by CASA been involved in finalising the report? Maybe someone should check the regulations.
Who is Ben Sandilands? With so much to say on the airline industry I’d be guessing you’re an ex airline pilot? Maybe a former air traffic controller? Airline management? I’m interested in learning where your expertise and knowledge about our industry comes from.
Have a read of the report. It looks like the valve didn’t fail, but rather the whole bottom of the cylinder detached. There is a pretty clear diagram in Appendix D. Basically the bottom pops off and out of the aircraft, the rest goes up through the floor, valve breaks off hitting the door and flips the cylinder up so that the sharp edge cores a hole in the roof. The spent “rocket” falls back to the floor and out of the aircraft.
One very interesting detail not commented on though is that four bottles were replaced in January, and the most recent two in June. It was one of these two most recently replaced cylinders which failed. Tracing the history of those would be pretty interesting. It certainly is an unusual failure mode I’ve never heard of.
As one who has dropped a CIG Oxy bottle with frightening results. I believe that from the description of the QF30 incident it is almost certain that the valve broke off the top thus converting the bottle into a jet propelled projectile. If the bottle had exploded it would have ruptured along its length releasing an enormous amount of energy in an instant. I doubt the survival of the aircraft after such an explosion.
Sydney Tech used to have a ruptured Oxy bottle displayed at Ultimo.
Comercial In Confidence! What bloody garbage. Quantas like all of the other Governent assets were sold using the spin of making them accountable to the market place. The market must be fully informed we were all told. That “couldn’t” happen under Government control. What constitutes the market for airlines?Why the passengers of course. Don’t they need to be fully informed of what they are buying particularly when their lives are at stake. Does anybody remember the “diversion” of the Latrobe river into Yallourn mine earlier this year by Tru Energy and their contractors. That little gem is also subject to a number of Government reports. I bet none of those will ever see the light of day either. They will of course be “commercial in confidence.”
“…unless immense political pressure is placed on the government to release it in its entirety.” Well, yes, exactly. One would hope that, as members of the flying public, our elected representatives can be counted upon to exercise their own political pressure. But, more realistically, what can the rest of us do? It will probably be the usual case of the media having to raise a stink and trying to embarrass the Government into releasing the report. The fact that Governments seem to have been strengthening their deflector shields looks like making that all the more difficult.
My request for your background information wasn’t hostile. Your vague response makes me think perhaps you got the wrong impression. I was merely trying to work out whether you’re an ‘outsider looking in’ when it comes to the aviation industry. Perhaps you’re the old man I see parked at the end of the runway taking photos of aircraft and listening to the tower frequency on his scanner. Or maybe you’ve got decades of experience working for aviation businesses and your opinions are based on your personal experiences, frustrations, and knowledge of the internal inadequacies within our industry.
I hope you will keep the following in mind when next you put pen to paper… As a journalist dedicated to reporting on the aviation industry you have an ethical obligation to report the facts free from exaggeration or personal grudge. Remember it’s not simply the lay man with a fear of flying that reads your articles. If you want your name to be held in high regard in the circles of your aviation peers then think twice before sensationalising or omitting facts that would otherwise make a minor technical issue appear to be a serious incident.
Spread the word amongst your journalist friends.
Who am I? Somebody proud of the company I work for and the industry I work in. Someone who would like to help stop the mindless slander and scare mongering that seems to have engulfed our media of late.
Navigational aides? What? People were killed? Or do you mean navigational aids?
Scott, At the risk of boring the rest of the room rigid I don’t care what people think about me. I do care about Qantas lying about the failure to complete compulsory ADs on pressure bulkheads as mere paperwork. I am deeply concerned when TIBA ‘procedures’ replace radar separation in our skies and so are the airlines. The bullsh*t has to stop. If you are in the air transport sector why not address your concerns about ‘mindless slander’ with diligent compliance with the standards and regulations? Why not insist that the air traffic control system actually control, that the aviation regulator actually regulate, and the Minister actually administer? Or would you prefer us to ignore the obvious until there is another completely avoidable Transair style accident involving a larger aircraft?
Actually the boys at “Mythbusters”, bless their hearts, have done a show testing exactly this question, namely, whether knocking the valve off a cylinder of compressed gas can produce a stream of excaping gas of sufficient force to make that cylinder take off like a rocket. After their usual fabrications to break off the valve assembly and a channel to guide the cylinder, they succeeded in punching a hole through a cement block wall. So it is entirely plausible, though the cylinder didn’t “explode”, somehow the valve broke off. The question is the how?