Don't Want To Go
Page 2.
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Just about every landing I've had has been awful, one plane seemed to fishtail down the runway and then when the 747 landed back in Perth, boy did it hit with a bang, everyone on board gasped. Apparently the undercarriage had to be inspected after that landing. Do you think we could have been in any danger from that? or does that happen a lot. (Landing is my worse part of flying - that and take off)
ScaredStupid,
I'll just comment upon a couple of things as I believe that most has been covered and there is little point in waffling on about somethings again.
Not sure what you mean by fishtailing down the runway so I can't really comment other than maybe control inputs against a cross wind. If the undercarriage needed an inspection it was because the inspection limits on all these parts are a LOT lower than the failure limits. I'm quite confident that the inspection did not even delay the next departure of the flight.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ScaredStupid
Do you think there is any truth in Qantas and Casa being secretive and covering up major maintenance problems though? The guys they interviewed seemed to have pretty good credentials.
Absolutely not. CASA and Qantas also have pretty good credentials. Without knowing who these people are/were all I can say is it's possible that people have there own agendas or simply a different opinion. As someone mentioned earlier ALL incidents and accidents are distributed world wide for all operators to review and work through. In the case you mention the relevence is that because of this distribution network the issues would then also get reviewed by the FAA who are the ultimate authority for Boeing aircraft or by the equivilent European authority for Airbus aircraft.
I know planes are supposed to be safe but why did the Scanair plane crash (I think that was the name), why wasn't the problem picked up.
I don't know but the enquiry will establish the cause and that cause will be available both through the industry and publically to ensure the risk is minimised for the future.
When you consider all these things remember that the flying crew and the cabin crew are not going to do anything that is going to put themselves in danger as they want to be able to go home also
or straitman's and Medhead's - that the media hypes things up ... Do you think there is any truth in Qantas and Casa being secretive and covering up major maintenance problems though? The guys they interviewed seemed to have pretty good credentials.
Your first trip sounds great.
On the media hype, the media are good at sounding very convincing. In the area I work in, the media are constantly accusing us of covering things up. This almost always gets headlines around Australia. But the thing is nothing is further from the truth we don't cover things up. And I can't imagine any government department would cover things up.
What usually happens is that we run scared of providing information because it is always hyped up and then one or two of us have to spend until 7 pm writing notes to the minister trying to explain a complex issue and why the media is wrong in words of 2 syllables or less, using only one page. This is not helped because the media often takes things that are half correct but jump to a completely wrong conclusion.
My work area is not related to CASA, but there seems to be common elements across all government departments.
I also know my wife's grandfather worked for CASA for many years and he is very honest. That probably doesn't help to judge today's staff but at least at some time there was a trustworthy culture, that could have been passed on.
Last edited by medhead; 5th September 2008 at 07:40 PM.
Reason: spelling - proof read before posting
Why would there be more reporting of these problems now and not before? Is Qantas just as safe as Virgin?
Is it just the 747's and big aircraft that have their maintenance done off shore? Not 737's 767's ...
I'm just worried that if there is an incident when I'm on a plane, I won't be able to handle it ... even if it doesn't crash, if I was on there and there was a problem - OMG!
Until I flew with my wife on our honeymoon, I could not believe how somone could be scared of flying. I did learn to understand very quickly. She now happily travels the world; still nervous but copes very well.
The events were not reported so readily in prior years, I believe just about anything and everything is now due to two factors:
The LAME (Engineers) union having a cross to bear with outsourcing and a new pay regime - so were feeding information to news media, and
The issue with QF30 from HKG to MEL a short time ago - this was quite a major issue, in fact.
The reality is - no injuries or indeed, fatalities.
I have flown nearly 1000 times with Qantas in the past 14 years and have experienced delays, cancellations, aircraft substitutions and other issues (including aborted take off) I estimate about once in every 80 flights. Guess what? I always arrived where I was going (eventually).
Qantas have over 1000 flights each day - of course there's going to be the odd issue here and there.
There is more reporting of these "incidents" at the moment because the media is able to sell more papers/website hits/viewers by sensationalising events that occur the world over everyday. The media build one one very rare event (the O2 bottle hole in the 747) and it snowballs, getting more and more people scared.
The media also focuses on an irrational fear held by far too many Australians about (sorry to simongr for borrowing his term) "johnny foreigner" working on "our" aircraft. My view is - why would Qantas purchase a $100mil aircraft, and then not protect their investment by keeping it well maintained? And run the risk of long term damage to a very profitable brand.
These "incidents" prove exactly why I trust Qantas, a problem was identified, action taken, and a safe outcome secured. Aircraft are not always perfect, but have many redundancies built in. The crew are top notch and I would (and do) trust my life with them on a regular basis.
Thanks Serfty and VitaminP... I need all the reasurrance I can get, flying has been my biggest phobia and since doing the fear of flying course, I managed to fly for the first time in my life last year ... since all of this air safety business and a couple of "CRASHES" I feel like I've gone back to square one. I know the crashes are probably dodge airlines but it still scares the heck out of me just thinking about it. I hope I can manage to go on this trip in Oct. Thanks again..
1 in 100,000,000 flights has had an incident due to a mechanical problem of the aircraft, through no fault of any human.
1 in 1000 flights has a incident due to human area.
Qantas employes nothing but highly trained and qualified staff. While we can argue to the cows home about customer service, that aside all staff have the Qantas's safety as a top priority. It's drilled in constantly and for good reason.
Prior to every flight engineers must complete an inspection of the aircraft and sign off on it. No engineer unless he or she wants to end up in jail would sign off on an unsafe aircraft upon inspection on the ground. In addition to the inspection by engineers, pilots also inspect the aircraft as part of their many checklists. On board the cabin crew are conducting their inspections as well. If a fault is noticed, and it needs repairing expect the delayed sign to come up on your flight. The Qantas policy is and always has been Safety before Scheduled and while a delay might be frustrating, I doubt a single user here would say they would prefer the aircraft to depart.
Qantas pilots regularly go through training and simulations every 3 months and cabin crew every 6. This is in addition to other training days completed once a year.
As other users have mentioned, aircraft cannot exactly pull over to the side of the road if something goes wrong, and because of that countless back up systems are in place.
No one on this board spends as much time onboard Qantas aircraft as me (and my colleague over at FT ( and no were not the same person!!) and I wouldn't be stepping onboard if I didn't feel 100% certain my safety is not compromised. As we have been alerted to, more so in the last few weeks, incidents do happen, but trained staff are there to handle these situations when things go wrong. QF30 could of been an catastrophe, but the pilots and cabin crew responded quickly, professionally and preformed a text book emergency decompression and no body was injured or harmed because we are all trained for "when things go wrong".
Come October, I would take no hesitation on stepping onboard a Qantas flight (or any other Australian Airline) knowing that the strict guidelines that govern aviation in Australia and highly skilled and trained staff are there to get me somewhere safely, and respond if something does go wrong to ensure no one gets harmed.
There is a much higher chance of you being killed in a car than in a plane.
Most people travel in cars everyday without any worries. Heaps of people get killed in cars everyday. Hardly anyone gets killed in planes.
These are the rough odds of being killed in a plane vs a car:
Plane: 13,500,000:1
Car: 4900:1
As for all the Qantas incidents, Apart from the hole in the side of the plane, the media is making a big issue of nothing. Virgin is no safer than Qantas. Most of these are Australian Airlines are the same in terms of safety.
even if it doesn't crash, if I was on there and there was a problem - OMG!
She now happily travels the world; still nervous but copes very well.
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