Qantas flight makes emergency landing in Sydney shortly after take-off

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The former head of safety for Qantas and now an aviation consultant Ron Bartsch says the aircraft involved has had an excellent safety record prior to this incident.

Transcript

00:00It's very early days, obviously, but obviously something very serious has happened.

00:09If it were a contained failure within the engine, the most likely cause would be possibly

00:17a separation of a blade that could be either a compressor blade or a turbine blade, and

00:23that could cause a fair bit of damage.

00:25So it's not an explosion per se, but it certainly causes a lot of damage to the aircraft and

00:31it's happening at the worst possible time of phase of flight.

00:35And would that be why some passengers talked about a loud bang?

00:39It would make that noise, would it?

00:41Correct, yes.

00:42Look, when you have a failure of a turbine and the parts of the engine's going through

00:47the rest of the engine, so it's not a great look within the engine point of view, but

00:55that may or may not have caused the bushfire because the turbine temperature's around

01:00about 800 degrees Celsius.

01:02So passengers would have heard something and they certainly would have probably noticed

01:06a decrease in the performance during takeoff.

01:09Right, which they certainly did report.

01:11Ron, how common or not is this?

01:16Not common, not common at all.

01:18I've been flying for 50 years now.

01:21I've never had a failure of an aircraft in any phase of flight, cruise, takeoff or landing

01:28on a commercial airliner.

01:29So it's a very rare occurrence, but pilots are trained for it.

01:33Obviously the pilots' trains responded properly during the emergency procedures training,

01:38but the fact that it happened just after what's known as V1, which is the decision speed,

01:44meant that the aircraft had to continue to fly because there wasn't sufficient runway

01:50to be able to pull up safely.

01:51So having an engine failure with a large number of people on board, I think there were 174

01:57passengers, 28 degrees Celsius, it's probably the worst possible time for an engine to fail.

02:04Right.

02:05Ron, as you say, you've flown many, many times.

02:08Talk us through what would have happened.

02:10Would a warning light have come on in the cockpit?

02:12And then what decisions is the pilot making?

02:16Look, the pilot would have noticed the failure straight away.

02:20There's indications in the flight deck, but there's also indications from a handling characteristic.

02:26So the pilot flying would have continued to fly.

02:30The other pilot would have handled the radio and emergency checks.

02:35And obviously they made the decision to come back and land, whether they dumped fuel or

02:39whatever.

02:40I'm not quite sure of this stage.

02:43But needless to say, it was a very, very good outcome to what was potentially a catastrophic

02:49situation.

02:50Yeah.

02:51And the pilot talked the passengers through it.

02:55How important is that?

02:57Look, I think it's from a passenger point of view and passenger appeal, it's a very

03:02important aspect.

03:03And from a PR point of view, I think that's something that is good for passengers.

03:08Because obviously 174 passengers are going to be very concerned, plus the crew on board

03:14and any information that's given that can alleviate those concerns is going to be, it's

03:20got to be a positive aspect.

03:22But number one thing with all pilots and that is to fly the aircraft.

03:27And that's obviously what they did.

03:28So Ron, would you have any concerns for other planes of the same build as this?

03:33Or is it a simple mechanical failure?

03:35Will there be an inquiry into why it wasn't spotted that it might have happened?

03:40Look, I know that Boeing has been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently with the

03:46failures associated with the new Boeing Max aircraft.

03:50But the difference is the Boeing 737-800 is a very popular aircraft throughout the world.

03:56It's got an excellent safety record.

03:59And indeed, it's in operation throughout Australia.

04:02So in terms of the actual aircraft and the engines that are fitted, it's a proven aircraft.

04:08So I don't think you're looking at any systemic problems, but obviously the ATSB will investigate

04:15the matter.

04:16They'll be looking at the cause or causal factors and trying to find out what actually

04:21caused this occurrence.

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