Second safety scare for Qantas

2008-07-29 07:34

Sydney - Qantas Airways has suffered its second safety scare in less than a week when a landing gear door failed to close, prompting a precautionary landing just three days after a near-disaster aboard an international flight that forced an emergency landing in the Philippines.

Qantas insisted Monday's landing in Adelaide, Australia, was strictly a precaution and the plane was never in danger, but passengers already jittery over the Philippines incident described panic inside the Melbourne-bound plane after the pilot announced there was a problem.

"It was absolute chaos on the plane, and then they had to turn it around and bring it back to Adelaide," passenger Gunter Kubler of South Africa told The Daily Telegraph.

"They had to bring in another plane to fly people back, but I don't trust them, so I will take a bus or a train to Melbourne."

Airline spokesperson Sophia Connolly on Tuesday insisted everyone on board the flight remained calm.

"Qantas flight 692 operating between Adelaide and Melbourne performed a routine 'air turn-back' shortly after take-off, due to an indication of one of the landing gear doors failing to retract," Connolly said, reading a prepared statement.

"The aircraft landed without incident and all passengers were accommodated on other flights. There was no safety risk at any time."

'In the scheme of things, this is pretty minor'

David Cox, general manager of Qantas Engineering, also stressed that the plane was never in any danger and that the landing was a precaution that was part of standard operating procedure.

He said that shortly after take-off from the southern city of Adelaide, a warning light had indicated a door around one set of wheels would not close, so the pilot turned around in what was a "relatively straightforward" procedure.

"If a pilot sees that something is not working, it is usual procedure to turn back to get it checked out," Cox told The Associated Press.

Passenger Rocco Russo told Australian Broadcasting Corp Radio that he heard a rattling noise about 10 minutes after the plane took off. Cox said the gear malfunction would have created some "air noise", but it was not a safety issue.

"Even if the landing gear had stayed down, the aircraft is safe to fly," he said. "I would apologise to passengers but it is not a safety issue. To put it in the same category as what happened in the Philippines is just wrong."

On Friday, a Qantas jumbo jet on its way from London to Melbourne made an emergency landing in the Philippines with a hole the size a small car in its fuselage. Investigators say the hole may have been caused by an exploding oxygen cylinder.

Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesperson Peter Gibson said in Monday's incident, the aircraft's wheels came up after take-off but the undercarriage door didn't retract. The plane could have continued to fly safely despite the malfunction, though it likely would have experienced a bit of turbulence and would have been harder for the pilot to fly because of aerodynamics problems, he said.

"In the scheme of things, this is pretty minor," Gibson said on Tuesday. "It's unfortunate that things like this happen, but you've got to be realistic - planes are machines. From time to time, things go wrong."

- AP