Qantas flights hit by technical malfunctions, unusable toilets

In the latest in a series of mechanical glitches that have been troubling Qantas Airways, the national airline and flag carrier of Australia, a flight from London to Sydney in Australia was delayed by over 15 hours owing to problems with the plane’s rudder.

The faulty rudder of the Boeing 747-400 was just one more technical malfunction to plague Qantas since July 25, 2008, when a blast tore a hole in the fuselage of a Qantas jet flying from Hong Kong to Melbourne in Australia. The large hole formed in the side of the plane forced an emergency landing in Manila in the Philippines.

Just hours after the London-Sydney flight had to be delayed, a fully loaded domestic flight – a Boeing 767 jet flying from Sydney to Perth – was forced to make an unplanned landing in Adelaide in order to empty its toilets.

Flight staff on the Sydney-Perth QF571 told passengers that ground staff at Sydney had forgotten to empty the toilets on the plane. By the time the flight had been in the air for an hour, three of the toilets had ceased to function, necessitating the unscheduled landing in Adelaide. The plane was grounded at Adelaide Airport for half an hour.

On August 15, 2008, it was found during routine safety checks at Singapore’s Changi airport that a small access panel had fallen off a Qantas Boeing jumbo jet on its flight to London. And, on August 13, 2008, there occurred a leak of hydraulic fluid in the airline’s Boeing 767 plane on the runway at Sydney airport.

On July 29, 2008, a domestic flight was forced to return to Adelaide after a wheel-bay door failed to close.

In the first week of August 2008, the newspaper The Australian had reported that that Qantas Airways still had 6 Boeing 747-400 jets grounded after it was found that these planes had not completed work, ordered 8 years ago, to stop an explosive decompression.

The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association has accused Qantas Airways of “letting standards slip” and blamed staffing shortages and cost-cutting for the airline’s recent troubles.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority of Australia insists that it has no evidence to suggest that safety standards have gone down at Qantas. However, the airline watchdog has embarked on a widespread investigation into the Qantas’ maintenance programmes, safety standards and response to recent untoward incidents.

The review of Qantas, being conducted by 6 specialists of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, is expected to release its findings within a fortnight.