Fourth Qantas flight turns back since engine incident safety scare
The string of incidents on Qantas’ older fleet of Boeing planes is unrelated to the A380 scare and were caused by various glitches and uncontrollable events that are not uncommon to any major carrier, the airline and a commercial aviation analyst said. But the events have happened in an unusual cluster and have drawn extra attention following the superjumbo blowout.
In the latest incident, a Boeing 747 carrying 171 passengers bound for Sydney turned back to Johannesburg after a bird slammed into one of the jumbo’s four engines shortly after takeoff late on Tuesday, Qantas spokesman Tom Woodward said.
It landed safely, but suffered damage to turbine blades in one engine that would take a day or two to repair, he said.
Also on Tuesday, a Qantas Boeing 717 sustained minor damage to its fuselage when it was struck by lightning during a domestic flight between Alice Springs and Darwin. The plane did not have to turn back because of the strike, and continued safely to its destination of Darwin, Woodward said.
Four Qantas flights have turned back to port since the A380 incident because of various faults and problems. The airline says none of them were as serious as the superjumbo problem, and the turnarounds were in line with Qantas’ routine safety procedures.
The day after the A380 problem, a Qantas Boeing 747 bound for Sydney turned around and landed safely in Singapore after an engine caught fire minutes after takeoff. Last Friday, a Boeing 767 turned back on a domestic flight in Australia after pilots detected abnormal vibrations in an engine.
On Monday, the flight crew aboard a Qantas Boeing 747 bound for Argentina donned oxygen masks and returned to Sydney after an electrical fault sent smoke into the cockpit.
