MANILA — A Qantas flight en route to Australia from London made an emergency stop in Manila on Friday after a loud bang punched a hole in the Boeing 747-400's fuselage, officials and passengers said.
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There were no injuries,
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“There is a big hole on the right side near the wing,” he said, adding it was 2.5 to 3 metres in diameter.
They report the "the hole" to be "2.5m-3m in diameter" but it's actually one of the the wing-to-body fairings that blew off...definitely a hole there, just not that big. Looks like the hole behind the fairing pressurized the area...which of course is not designed to be pressurized. That could have been a lot worse.
I tought it was the Cargo door that came off or something. Just like that United flight I beleive that originated in HNL many years ago.
They had that incedent on an episode of Mayday.
Glad to hear that eferything worked out and nobdy was sucked out and died
If you look closer - there is a hole in the plane with metal skin peeled back and passenger luggage hanging out. That's why the whole wing body fairing is gone.
Metal fatigue in the pressure vessel? Clearly when it went boom it took the wing/fuselage fearing with it. Will be interesting to find out what exactly happened. If it where a bomb it was DARN small.
I don't know how you can conclude that professor. To me - it doesn't look like metal fatigue or corrosion as the pieces are too jagged and it took out sections of the stringers as well. Not only that - but I doubt you'd have luggage an belongings like that if the fuse simply let go, but that's just my opinion.
Put 8 PSI Diff. in a weakened Pepsi can ... it will end up looking the same as the hole on that jet. It is a task card on all Boeing airliners to check the area underneath the wing-to-body fairings for cracks, also the fasteners that hold that fairing on are a specific length due to the anchors being pressure sealed, if you put to long on fastener in the anchor it will puncture the seal and will pressurize the area if the PRC seal is good enough.
Put 8 PSI Diff. in a weakened Pepsi can ... it will end up looking the same as the hole on that jet.
To me, a case of fatigue failure wouldn't have caused a hole like that in the inner section. I'd guess Troubleshot is closest to the source.
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I'm no expert on anything like metallurgy or 747's, but my guess would be a simple one, the cargo is right up against the pressure vessel, (in the picture anyways) and I'd bet if any hard edged cargo/luggage were pushed up against the wall too hard or several times over multiple flights, it would eventually dent/weaken the structure, which would eventually let go under pressure and take out whatever was behind it. In this case, only the wing fairing. My other thought is that it was unlikely anywhere near 8 psi cabin diff. They were only at 29000' after departure, so it would surprise me if they were already at 8psi but I don't know what they use as a standard cabin rate of climb, I could be wrong, it's just a guess. If this is the case, a higher cabin diff may have made for a much louder bang and a less than fortunate outcome...
In any case, I do expect the NTSB from Austr. will figure it out and I'm sure glad that they have lots of witnesses and not a lot of debris to sort through.
youngtimer wrote:I'm no expert on anything like metallurgy or 747's, but my guess would be a simple one, the cargo is right up against the pressure vessel, (in the picture anyways) and I'd bet if any hard edged cargo/luggage were pushed up against the wall too hard or several times over multiple flights, it would eventually dent/weaken the structure, which would eventually let go under pressure and take out whatever was behind it....
Anyone around here that has stuffed bags into 747s? I would be surprised if you could actually put bags/freight against the aircraft exterior skin. I'm guessing that there would be a liner material of some sort (aluminum/gill liner) installed against the interior face of the fuselage frames. But I know dick about 747s so I could be wrong.
Cheers,
ETTW
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3. I still hate simulators
Investigators suspect it was an exploding oxygen bottle that ripped a three-metre hole in the skin of an Australian jumbo jet high over the South China Sea on Friday.
Australian civil aviation officials said on Sunday they have ordered an urgent inspection of every oxygen bottle aboard Qantas's fleet of 30 Boeing 747s after one of two bottles stored in a cargo hold breached in the incident was found to be missing.
It has emerged that a warning was issued about the brackets holding up oxygen cylinders on Boeing 747s several months before Friday's Qantas emergency.
There is speculation an oxygen cylinder exploded and ripped a hole in the side of the plane after it took off from Hong Kong.
Qantas is checking oxygen cylinders on all its Boeing 747-400s after the Transport Safety Bureau found one missing from the plane that made an emergency landing in Manila.
Now it has emerged that in April, acting on a warning from the United States, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) ordered Qantas to check the support brackets for oxygen cylinders because of concerns tanks could come loose and fall.
The Authority's spokesman, Peter Gibson, says while the plane involved in the emergency was not affected there are other Qantas planes with the brackets.
Mr Gibson says Qantas is yet to confirm that it checked the brackets on the 747s affected.
if it was an O2 bottle, they're probably damn lucky there wasn't a fire to top it off. It kind of looks like the baggage helped plug the hole too, maybe it could have been far worse of a situation, like seats getting sucked out with people in them..
It has been confirmed by Austrailian investigaters that the #4 O2 cylinder is missing and that pieces of it have been found in the aircraft.
One piece - a part of the valve - was found in the cabin after it made a 20 cm hole in the floor.
They still don't know if this was the cause or an after effect.
Someone enlighten me; What does an O2 tank near the wing root of a 747 do. Are we talking storage of small cylinders for personal emergency use? Larger cylinders for emergency decent masks (for lack of a better term), or something else.
