Qantas passengers to return after ordeal [Archive]

Gumleaf

July 25th, 2008, 06:57 PM

09:25 AEST Sat Jul 26 2008

Hundreds of Qantas passengers will land in Australia later on Saturday morning after a terrifying ordeal in which a massive hole blew through the belly of a plane they had been flying in earlier at 29,000 feet.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=604014

that is a bloody big hole!!! lucky nobody got sucked out!

Gumleaf

August 7th, 2008, 12:34 AM

'Noisy' Qantas jet aborts take-off
14:42 AEST Thu Aug 7 2008

A Qantas domestic flight carrying 111 passengers pulled out of a take-off at Melbourne Airport after noises were heard coming from the undercarriage.

The Canberra-bound 737 jet returned to the terminal after the aborted take-off and passengers were loaded onto another plane and finally left Melbourne just after 1pm (AEST).

A Qantas spokeswoman said QF850 had problems with its air-conditioning duct unit.

"It was a routine return to the terminal due to an air-conditioning fault," she said.

"Rather than delay passengers further a replacement aircraft was arranged and the flight took off just before 1pm."

The incident was another in a recent run of scares for Australia's national airline.

Qantas' problems started last month with an emergency landing at Manila after an explosion ripped a hole in a jet's fuselage en route from Hong Kong to Melbourne.

Then a domestic flight was forced to return to Adelaide last week after a wheel bay door failed to close.

A Qantas Boeing 767 flight turned back for an emergency landing at Sydney airport on August 2 after a hydraulic fluid leak was discovered.

That was followed by a jet being grounded for almost three hours after a technical fault was discovered in a pre-flight inspection at Sydney airport on Monday.

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon admitted this week that the airline's reputation had been tainted by the incidents and said Qantas had to work hard to retrieve its good name.