Quantas flight in new mid-air scare
The pilot of a Manila-bound Qantas jetliner made an emergency landing at Sydney Airport when fluid began leaking from the plane, Australian authorities said.
A cabin crew union is now seeking a meeting with airline management over yesterday’s mid-air scare, which came eight days after an explosion blew a hole in the fuselage of a Qantas Boeing 747 en route from London to Australia.
The Boeing 767 with 200 passengers on board took off from Sydney and spent 100 minutes in the sky – dumping fuel as a precaution – before landing at the same airport, air safety authorities said.
“The air traffic controllers contacted the pilot when they thought they saw smoke coming from the back of the aircraft,” Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Peter Gibson told The Sun-Herald Sunday newspaper.
What appeared to be smoke proved to be a streaming mist of hydraulic fluid leaking from a mechanism which controls a wing-top flap that slows the aircraft on landing, a Qantas spokeswoman said.
“There was no safety issue at any time,” the spokeswoman said.
Passengers said the plane dumped fuel over the ocean east of Sydney and circled the city for more than an hour before landing.
The passengers were transferred to another aircraft, which left Sydney for Manila late yesterday afternoon.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is examining the July 25 mid-air explosion aboard a Qantas jet that was diverted to Manila, said it is awaiting a report from Qantas engineers before deciding whether to launch an investigation into the latest incident.
Steven Reed, president of the Flight Attendants Association cabin crew union, told The Herald Sun that the latest incident is disturbing. He said the cabin crew had asked the company for a briefing.
