At this stage the general public and the investigators from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau know as much about the QF 72 emergency over WA yesterday as each other. Which is next to nothing in terms of the reasons.
However the ATSB will soon start to get the hard facts together. The cockpit voice recorder and data recorder will tell them what was happening for the pilots when the ’sudden altitude change’ initially referred to by Qantas occurred.
It will also tell them how fast the event happened, and how far the aircraft dropped.
The clues overnight are confusing. If the interval between the declaration of ‘Mayday’ by the pilots and touch down at Learmonth really was only nine minutes this looks like they had to regain control of the Airbus A330 under exceptionally adverse conditions.
Are there clues in the words used, or not used, by Qantas and the local authorities at Learmonth?
Maybe. Qantas has referred to a sudden change in altitude, but not as yet referred to clear air turbulence. The Learmonth police have referred to a ’systems failure’. Where did they hear those words, or what caused them to use them.
Passengers have referred to abruptness of the emergency, and people being thrown up against the ceiling, which would mean there was a period of negative G which is often associated with aircraft caught in severe down drafts and is one of many reasons why you are supposed to keep your seat belt loosely fastened throughout a flight. One passenger is reported as saying that ‘the lights went out’ followed by as loud bang and mayhem.
I have a hunch there will be more from the ATSB sooner rather than later.
2 Comments
I don’t have any aviation training, but it wouldn’t surprise me that the Mayday was simply a procedural one – That is, it was issued to allow them to rapidly land at an airport that is only available as an emergency alternate in order to get medical assistance for the passengers. This would have been complicated by the fact it was an international flight and hence needed customs assistance.
I really doubt there’s anything (mechanically) wrong with the aircraft and the landing was purely to offload the injured as rapidly as possible.
Chris,
The A330 have proven outstandingly successful and robust in service for more than a decade, and the Qantas examples are comparatively new and incorporate many incremental improvements.
However as the more recent news from the ATSB at the top of the blog indicates, there was a control crisis and a very steep descent. The aircraft will not return to passenger service until it is checked for any structural damage, particularly to the elevators. I think we are getting a clearer picture of a very urgent landing. I’m guessing that like pilots of any type of aircraft, the Qantas crew would have been especially sensitive to any possibility of elevator damage, which is of critical importance to controlling the jet. A precondition for a Mayday call is concern about structural integrity.