Sydney - The astonishing run of maintenance woes for
Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd continues with a faulty rudder
delaying a plane from London for 15 hours and an internal flight
forced into an unscheduled landing because its toilets hadn't been
emptied.
Qantas confirmed Monday that a 'technical issue' with the rudder
on a 747-400 had resulted in Sydney-bound passengers spending an
extra night in London.
Almost as annoying for passengers was Sunday's impromptu stop in
Adelaide after ground staff in Sydney forgot to empty toilet tanks on
a flight that was bound for Perth.
'Four out of seven toilets were not flushing so for the comfort of
our passengers we diverted to Adelaide,' a Qantas spokesman said.
Last week engineers at Singapore's Changi Airport discovered a
body panel had fallen off a Qantas jumbo flying between Melbourne and
the island republic forcing a six-hour delay for London-bound
passengers.
On Wednesday a Qantas Boeing 767 left a trail of hydraulic fluid
on the tarmac at Sydney Airport after it touched down after a flight
from Melbourne.
Australia's aviation safety watchdog, the Civil Aviation Safety
Authority (CASA), is investigating fleet maintenance at Qantas.
The probe was sparked after a serious safety scare July 25 when an
exploding oxygen tank in the cargo bay punched a 3-metre hole in the
fuselage of a Qantas 747-400 flying from Hong Kong to Melbourne.
The pilot descended from 29,000 feet to 10,000 feet in about five
minutes and made an emergency landing in Manila without the benefit
of the full suite of instrument landing systems.
A week later a domestic flight was forced to return to Adelaide
after a wheel bay door on a Boeing 767 failed to close properly.
Just days after that, a flight bound for Manila returned to Sydney
after the pilot declared an emergency and dumped fuel because of a
leak in the hydraulics operating a wing flap.
Transport Minister Anthony Albanese urged Australians not to 'talk
down' Qantas, declaring it had one of the safest aviation systems in
the world. The CASA report is expected to be delivered to the
government next week.
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