The 'safe' airline

Travel International Travel
41

There is just so much that’s odd about this story.

Side stepping for the moment her job as a human rights and refugee activist in Japan . . .

[quote]Human rights activist fined for boozy ruckus on flight
August 1, 2008
A MELBOURNE woman who was fined $1000 for offences on a Qantas flight said she was served 20 glasses of champagne and other alcohol after take-off.

Bronwyn Streader had drunk the champagne, two glasses of red wine and a gin and tonic while on medication, her lawyer told Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday.

Alex Lewenberg said Streader, 30, was a human rights and refugee activist in Japan, with a doctorate in Japanese culture.

“When I fly Qantas economy I’m lucky to get three glasses of orange juice,” Mr Lewenberg said, “but if you’re blonde and good-looking you get 20 glasses of champagne.”

Streader pleaded guilty to charges of interfering with a crew member, smoking and not wearing a seatbelt during landing. The court heard she had boarded a Sydney-bound flight in Tokyo on March 28 and was seen drinking various types of alcohol.

The prosecution said Streader was served about five alcoholic drinks in a five-hour period. About halfway through the flight she was told to stop smoking, but she lit another cigarette before her packet was confiscated.

When a flight attendant later found evidence she had smoked in a toilet, the captain sent his co-pilot to deliver Streader a formal warning.

“Krieger [the co-pilot] attempted to give [her] the warning but [she] refused to listen and instead reached out and grabbed a pen from the left pocket of Krieger’s shirt,” said the prosecution’s summary tendered in court. “I’m going to sue you. I’m going to take all your names,” she had said, and when Krieger reappeared she grabbed his identification on his shirt.

During the aircraft’s descent, Streader left her seat, refused to return to it and stood in the galley during landing, after which she was arrested.

Mr Lewenberg said his client had been seriously assaulted in Tokyo, and on the flight she had been affected by a combination of alcohol and medication.

In his sentencing remarks, the magistrate, Lance Martin, said Streader had been bitterly disappointed with the Japanese authorities’ response to her assault. Mr Martin said although misbehaviour on aircraft could put lives at risk, he accepted that Streader, who flew from Japan for yesterday’s hearing, was traumatised and had acted out of character.

She was put on a 12-month bond, without a conviction, and ordered to pay $600 to the court fund and $400 in costs.[/quote]

So how many fags can you squeeze in until the bitchy QantArse stewards take your smokes and give you a fine? Isn’t the basic fine like ten times that amount just for smoking? You know, a grand might be okay if you could get four smokes in on an eight hour flight.

HG

42

One of them turned you down? Sounds like sour grapes to me :laughing:

43

[quote]Plane’s engine dies on way to Akld airport
Grounding adds to growing Qantas turmoil
Thursday, 14 August 2008

A Qantas jumbo jet has been grounded in New Zealand after one of its engines shut down approaching Auckland airport.

One engine on a Boeing 747-300, QF25 from Melbourne, shut down while approaching Auckland airport last night, a Qantas spokeswoman in Auckland said today.

The crew managed to restore power and the plane landed safely.

The grounding adds to Qantas’ list of problems with aircraft maintenance and engine performance has grown longer.

“A faulty fuel-flow regulator was replaced overnight and the flight (to Los Angeles) is now scheduled to depart at 1.40pm today,” the spokeswoman she said.

The incident came on a day of continuing turmoil for Qantas, in which a 767 was grounded in Melbourne because of a problem with the flap indicator in the cockpit.

In another incident yesterday a second Boeing 747 had to be taken out of service for a time to replace a jack screw driving the plane’s horizontal tail.

Urgent maintenance was needed because the plane’s tail was at risk of breaking away.

The airline confirmed that QF31, due to depart Sydney for London via Singapore, had been delayed because of “maintenance requirements associated with a horizontal stabiliser jack screw”.

On Tuesday afternoon, the airline grounded six planes – a quarter of its 737-400 fleet – after finding discrepancies in their maintenance records.[/quote]

stuff.co.nz/4655875a11.html

44

Crikey! Hope they’re not offsetting high fuel costs by skimping on maintenance.

Hang on, Stuff.com.NZ? Should I trust those reports?

HG

45

It’s about time they buy Airbus …

46

:wanker: :Europe: :Europe: :Europe: :wanker:

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With such a safety record, they may have gotten complacent
Seems statistically impossible to have that many events in such a short space of time, short of a sudden or deliberate mass incompetence in maintenance.

Or maybe the safest airline was the luckiest for a long time. They must be going to the right temple to bai bai, unlike the management of China Airlines

48

Dja reckon we oughtta take a look at the donk, Bruce? Nah, she’ll be apples, mate.

HG

49

And another.

[quote]A small body panel has fallen off a Qantas Jumbo jet on its way to Singapore from Melbourne.

A spokeswoman for Qantas says routine checks on the Boeing 747 after it arrived at Singapore’s Changi Airport early this morning found that a small engine access panel had become detached.[/quote]

theage.com.au/articles/2008/ … 83980.html

50

In related news, an Indonesian fishing boat crew have mutinied, murdering the captain and first mate after interpreting the sudden decapitation of a crewman as evidence the sea spirits were unhappy with their voyage. It is believed the crewman may have been hit by a piece of falling Qantarse plane, an increasing commonality in the region, although the crew are believed to have discounted this theory in their bloodlust.

HG

51

I’m guessing that small mechanical problems like some of these generally go unnoticed by the public, unless a major event has just happened at a particular airline, in which case suddenly they all become salient, and there is thus the perception that there are “suddenly” many problems, when in fact they had been happening all along. Just a guess.

52

Pretty much OT there Chewy.

This however…

[quote]Qantas management under fire over alleged cover-up
AAP | Saturday, 20 September 2008

Qantas management have been forced to defend allegations that they pressured an engineer to alter a report that said a crack in a plane had been painted over.

Management have been accused of covering up the fault, noted by an engineer and recorded in a safety report at Melbourne’s Avalon airport in May.

The original version of the engineer’s report, which stated the crack in the Boeing 747-400’s frame had been painted over, was later altered to remove the reference entirely.

The report had been changed because the Qantas worker had been pressured by “senior management to omit or alter information on the form”, one engineer said in a complaint obtained by Fairfax newspapers.

They said the report was altered to avoid criticism of the airline’s push to have maintenance conducted overseas.

“Management are aware of the public perception in relation to dodgy maintenance of aircraft that have returned from overseas,” the complaint said. “The interference in the process that is in place … solidifies engineer’s beliefs that the system has failed.”

But the airline’s head of engineering, David Cox, dismissed the concerns as being “no issue”.

“We are more than confident in our processes and run an open and transparent operation,” he said. “It is a shame that some people are not able to abide by the umpire’s decision.”[/quote]

stuff.co.nz/4699985a12.html

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[quote]Qantas plunge: computer ‘irregularity’
AAP | Wednesday, 08 October 2008

Air safety investigators say there was an “irregularity” in the on-board computer equipment of a Qantas plane involved in a mid-air incident between Singapore and Perth.

The Airbus A330-300, with 303 passengers and a crew of 10, struck what the airline described as a “sudden change in altitude” north of its destination yesterday.

The plane landed at Learmonth, about 40 kilometres from Exmouth, without any further incidents.

West Australian police said at least 20 passengers and crew aboard QF72 were seriously injured - some with spinal injuries and others with broken bones and lacerations.

Two Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators are on the ground at Learmonth and five more are expected to arrive there later today.

The bureau’s director of aviation safety investigation, Julian Walsh, said the plane was travelling at 37,000 feet and 177 kilometres north of Carnarvon when the incident occurred.

“The pilots received electronic centralised aircraft monitoring messages in the cockpit relating to some irregularity with the aircraft’s elevator control system,” he told reporters in Canberra.

The aircraft then “departed level flight”, and climbed approximately 300 feet.

"The crew had initiated the non-normal checklist response actions.

“The aircraft is then reported to have abruptly pitched nose down.”

A number of passengers, cabin crew and loose objects were thrown about the aircraft cabin, primarily in the rear of the aircraft, resulting in a number of injuries to some cabin crew and passengers, Mr Walshe said.

The crew made an emergency broadcast to air traffic control, reporting that some people had been injured.

The pilot also made a request to land the plane at Learmonth.

“A few minutes later, the crew upgraded that broadcast and declared a mayday and advised air traffic control of multiple injuries, including broken bones and lacerations,” Mr Walshe said.

The plane landed at Learmonth about 3.30pm local time, approximately 40 minutes after the event.

The bureau understands 14 people with serious, but not life-threatening, injuries including concussion and broken bones, were taken by air ambulance to Perth, Mr Walshe said.

Thirty other passengers were taken to hospital for concussion, minor lacerations and fractures.

Another 30 people with minor bruises and stiff necks did not require hospital treatment.[/quote]

stuff.co.nz/4720418a12.html