Was QF 72 a victim of maintenance scrimping?
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There is nothing known about the QF 72 emergency landing at Learmonth WA two days that links it to the maintenance deficiencies already identified in the recent and damning CASA special audit of Qantas. It may well be proven by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation of the incident, which injured or hurt some 70 passengers and crew, that there is categorically no such link. But there are important questions being asked. In 2004 a year after the jet entered Qantas service, a series of specific warnings and directives were made in relation to the elevator controls of the A330 type involved in the incident. Such warnings and remedial injunctions are common in air transport. There are volumes of them applying to the world’s jet fleets of all types, and new issues and ways to fix them are routinely discovered and recommended. Crikey has asked Qantas if it can categorically confirm that all the required maintenance procedures for the aircraft in question, and in particular its elevator system, were carried out in full and in due time. Qantas says it is considering the question. However, a spokesperson cautioned that Qantas would not make any comment which could be construed as in any way seeking to influence the ATSB in its thorough investigation, with which the airline was fully co-operating. The elevators, in lay terms what appear to be small flaps in the tail of the aircraft, are crucial to stable flight and keeping the nose pointed in the intended direction of flight. The indication of an “irregularity” in the elevators seen in the cockpit immediately before QF 72 unexpectedly climbed 300 feet above its intended cruise level of 37,000 feet would have been of considerable concern to the crew. As the ATSB revealed yesterday, it was soon after this happened, and the crew was following the procedure for ‘non-normal’ operations, that the plane dived steeply. How the jet and the pilots responded to that dive, and then a second upset or dive before completing the emergency descent is under forensic examination by the accident investigator. It is not a witch hunt. No other A330 is on the records so far searched as experiencing an identical incident. Important lessons may therefore be there to be extracted from QF 72. But the maintenance question is a valid one for an airline that has committed immense self harm to its brand through engineering related failings as identified by CASA in recent times. Was Qantas unlucky (in one sense) with QF 72? Or did it make its own bad luck, only to be saved by the excellence of its pilots? Any further developments today will be posted to the Ben Sandilands Crikey blog Plane Talking. |
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8 Comments
According to reports that I read the problem was caused by a computer malfunction; if so this doesn’t point to a maintenance problem, does it?
It’s all pointing to the need to either re-nationalise Qantas or at least have majority Government ownership. We have lost a lot through combining TAA with Qantas, privatising, going off-shore for maintenance etc. Ask the residents of Northern Territory towns that no longer have an air service. Maybe the Flying Kangaroo is really a Flying Swamp Wallaby (no offence to wallabies).
The problem is very unlikely to be a computer error - the system that controls the elevator controls has two redundant systems as back up - which means, if the computer breaks, there is another to take it’s place straight away… and if that breaks, there is still another to take over the operation…
That would mean there was an error that happened on all three systems at the same time - which seems highly improbable…
not impossible, improbable…
Thanks for the detailed explanation Ben.
Steve,
The interesting question is whether the computer alert was a computer error, or whether it was telling the pilots something was indeed ‘irregular’ with the elevator controls. However this investigation is expected to take some time. I don’t think anyone can be certain what it will find or recommend but it is creating world wide interest among airlines because it involves a serious incident in which the interactions of pilots with the computer based flight laws that are integral to the Airbus range of airliners are being closely examined.
It is not just an investigation into what caused the accident, but why certain things happened subsequent to the initial upset.
The QF72 incident clearly occured because Geoff Dixon’s package wasn’t big enough. If Qantas can’t be bothered paying a resonable number of millions to the CEO, how can they expect to keep planes in the air? Stop scrimping on your most important asset Qantas! No, not the brand, not the planes, not the staff and definitely not the cattle/customers - it’s the Executive, Stupid!
There’s no doubt Qantas is a victim of corporate greed. Just one company now suffering the effects of the grab for Peter public savings to pay for Paul commercial greed. Obscene profiteering to the detriment of the average Aussie should have been halted during the Howard years. We’ve had products and services stripped bare to the extent that most no longer resemble their original purpose. Airlines that cant fly, banks that cant lend a toxic health industry and two highly profitable retail outlets that rip you off despite market control - just the tip of a truly bizarre economic iceberg. If we don’t balance this skewed form of capitalism we can write off our economy to a swag of corporate and governance egg-heads who’ll make off with our superannuation, savings and nest-eggs as rewards for stuffing the economy.
Thanks Moss for the information, as you say it would appear to be a vanishingly small chance.
I was repeating what I read in the NT News this am.