Explosion blows a part of the plane Disaster After Take Off | Qantas Flight 30 | Midair Plane Blast
INTRODUCTION OF MIDAIR PLANE BLAST
You must have seen or heard about many miracles in your life. But have you ever heard that an explosion happened on a plane flying at 30 thousand feet, which caused a big hole in the plane? Despite that explosion, the plane landed safely and everyone survived.
The case study we are going to present today is no less than a miracle of how 369 people saw death so close but yet survived.
Case Study of Midair Plane Blast
8 July 2008, Honkong International airport, Qantas airline flight -30 which normally flies from London to Melobourne and stops at Hongkong airport on the way.
In the second phase of its flight, this plane was now preparing to fly from Hongkong to Melbourne, Boeing 747 – 438 series, This plane was registered as VH – OJK, That day 3 pilots were present in this aeroplane. The airplane was being flown by 53-year-old Captain John Francis Bartels, who had 25 years of flying experience.
Before joining Qantas Airlines, Captain John Francis Bartels had also worked for the Royal Australian Navy for 7 years. Co-pilot Bernd Werninghaus and Paul Tabac were accompanying him on this flight. All of three pilots were highly trained and had proven experience flying the same kind of plane
It was a very busy flight and, on that day, there were 350 passengers in the flight along with 19 crew members.
At around 9 am the Qantas flight started take-off roll at the airport, And at around 09:22 this flight took off from Hongkong airport to Melbourne. It was a normal take-off and everything was going smoothly. The plane was flying at its normal cruising speed and there was no indication of any fault or technical issue. It was only 50 minutes into the flight that suddenly a loud bang was heard in the plane.
Soon after the explosion, the air pressure dropped suddenly and the oxygen masks started hanging in the passenger cabin. After the explosion, passengers and cabin crew noticed a huge hole in the floor of the plane and a similar hole in the wall outside the cargo deck. Seeing the open sky under their feet, passengers couldn`t breathe, Everyone in the plane was panicked and started to pray for their life. Due to the low oxygen pressure in the cabin, the passengers were also having difficulty in breathing.
By this time the pilots were also informed by the cabin crew about the blast and hole in the airplane wall. And before the pilots could understand anything, suddenly the autopilot system stopped and the plane started to wobble. Looking at this, the first officer immediately tried to control the plane manually. Pilots also made an announcement in the passenger cabin and asked everyone to fasten their seat belts and calm down.
Along with autopilots, other systems of the plane also started failing one by one, which created a sudden panic & tension in the cockpit. Despite of all these sudden failures and warning messages, the pilots were trying their best to control the plane.
But now more & more warning messages started to pop out from different sensors which was creating more confusion for pilots and making it really difficult to handle. Even in this difficult situation, the pilots kept their calm and started to handle the situation and control the plane more efficiently.
Due to the hole in the plane at such a high height, now passengers could breathe only with the help of oxygen masks. Although everyone had got oxygen masks in the plane, but it was not possible to breathe for a long time with the help of oxygen masks, because the oxygen cylinder of the plane has only 15 minutes of emergency oxygen. Seeing this situation, the pilots decided that they have to reduce the altitude of the plane to 10,000 feet.
So that all the passengers could breathe without oxygen masks. To reduce the altitude of the plane, the pilots applied speed brakes, due to which the plane started coming down very fast. Although the pilots were trying their best to save the plane from crashing, but they knew very well that it is very difficult for the plane to survive in this situation. So while on one hand the pilots were trying to reduce the height of the plane to 10000 feet, on the other hand they called MAY DAY to the traffic control tower.
which meant that the plane could crash anytime and everyone on-board may lost their lives, But it is said that the one who is guarded by God cannot be killed by anyone so till now even the pilots did not know what miracle was written for them in their destiny.
The pilots knew very well that in this situation the plane would not be able to fly for long, so they had to land the plane at an airport as soon as possible. Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport was the closest to the plane’s location at that time, and the pilots decided to land the plane at the same airport.
This airport of Manila was now the last ray of hope for the pilots. There was still a lot of fuel left in the plane due to which the weight of the plane was too much. If the plane had landed with this weight, there was a danger of crashing on its runway and the plane could have caught fire and everyone could have died.
That’s why the pilots decided to throw the extra fuel present in the plane in the air itself so that when the plane lands, its weight would be reduced. Heading towards Manila airport, the pilots saw a lot of warning signals in the cockpits. Anything could happen at any time.
But even in these difficult situations, the pilots did not give up and tried their best to control the plane. Following the radar signals received by Manila’s air traffic control, the Quantas flight was moving towards the airport and everyone was hoping that somehow the plane would land at this airport.
And after this a miracle happened which no one would have ever expected. The pilots got the plane safely landed at Manila airport, and saved the lives of all the passengers present in the plane along with the cabin crew.
But the story doesn’t end here. How did this explosion happen? The answer to this question was yet to be found. To find answers to all these questions, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau sent a special team to Manila Airport to inspect the aircraft.
In its preliminary investigation, the investigation team found that there was a hole about 2.01 meters wide and 1.52 meters high under the wing in the left side of the plane, due to which a large part of the plane’s floor and roof had been broken apart from the plane. Slowly a lot of other information also started coming out.
After 2 years of investigation, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau submitted its report and said that the blast was caused by one of the cylinders which were kept on the plane for emergency by the operating system of Quantas flight.
Because except that one cylinder, all the other cylinders were at their place. During the investigation, only one valve of that cylinder was found, due to which it was very difficult to find out why and how the blast happened in that cylinder. During the investigation, the Quantas flight remained at Manila airport for a long time. After some necessary repairs, the plane was taken to Australia on 10 November 2008,
Where the plane was brought back into service after some minor repairs were done. But on 18 November 2008, this aircraft again collided with another aircraft and had to be repaired again. When this aircraft came back into service on January 15, 2009, the authorities had understood that now this aircraft is of no use. And finally this plane was retired at the end of 2009.
