Qantas Jet Incident Investigation Commences
Loading...
Thursday, October 09, 2008
A computer glitch may have caused a Qantas jet to plunge suddenly mid-flight, an Australian air safety investigator has said.
The incident injured 40 passengers, in a terrifying airborne drama. Qantas officials said it was too soon to say what had caused the sudden drop in altitude that forced the Airbus A330-300 into an emergency landing.
The plane, flying from Singapore to Perth, landed near Exmouth in Western Australia after making a mayday call. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau's (ATSB) director of aviation safety, Julian Walsh, said the plane was cruising at 37,000 feet (11,200 metres) when pilots received an automated warning of an "irregularity". "The pilots received electronic centralised aircraft monitoring messages in the cockpit, relating to some irregularity with the aircraft's elevator control system," Mr Walsh told a news conference in Canberra on Wednesday.
"The aircraft departed normal flight and climbed 300 feet," Mr Walsh said later on Australian radio. "The aircraft did that of its own accord and then, whilst the crew were doing the normal actions in response to that not normal situation, the aircraft then pitched down suddenly and quite rapidly," he said.
Mr Walsh added that it was not known how far the plane had fallen and cautioned that it was too early in the probe to draw any concrete conclusions as to what happened. ATSB investigators have begun arriving at an air force base in Exmouth, in remote northwest Western Australia. An investigator from the French Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA), which investigates air incidents, and another from the French-based aircraft manufacturer Airbus will also join the probe, he said.
Passengers were badly shaken by the incident. One of them, Nigel Court, said the sudden change in altitude had caused mayhem on board.