Accident aboard Qantas flight in Australia

Oct 7 - QF72 carrying 303 passengers and 10 crew, from Singapore to Perth, forced to make an emergency landing at Exmouth, in northern Western Australia, after experiencing a sudden change in altitude which sparked a mayday call.

...the loss of altitude was severe enough to drive people head first into the cabin ceiling, causing major injuries.

Anyone on that flight still wondering why you're advised to keep your seat-belt on at all times? Didn't think so.

See the film Rain Man.

Dustin Hoffmann's character says Qantas the only major airline w/o fatal accident. Filmed in 1988...

See the film Rain Man.

Dustin Hoffmann's character says Qantas the only major airline w/o fatal accident. Filmed in 1988...

I was reading recently about the amount of airplane maintanence that is now being outsourced, with apparently poor oversight. Worrying.

Also does make me more in favor of buying an airplane seat for infants less than two as opposed to lap babies. This happens too frequently for comfort.

There should be a separate service for whining, crying, pant-shitting creatures.

I agree with you BadDoggie, I just don't think many people are aware of this option.

An Australian airline Qantas Airbus A330-300, suffered "a sudden change of altitude" on Tuesday. "The mid-air incident resulted in injuries to 74 people, with 51 of them treated by three hospitals in Perth for fractures, lacerations and suspected spinal injuries when the flight bound from Singapore to Perth had a dramatic drop in altitude that hurled passengers around the cabin." Now it seems Qantas is seeking to blame interference from passenger electronics, and it's not the first time; "In July, a passenger clicking on a wireless mouse mid-flight was blamed for causing a Qantas jet to be thrown off course".

preliminary investigations into a Qantas Airbus A330 mishap where 51 passengers were injured has concluded that it was due to the Air Data Inertial Reference System feeding incorrect information into the flight control system — not interference from passenger electronics, as Qantas had initially claimed. Quoting from the ABC report: "Authorities have blamed a faulty onboard computer system for last week's mid-flight incident on a Qantas flight to Perth. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said incorrect information from the faulty computer triggered a series of alarms and then prompted the Airbus A330's flight control computers to put the jet into a 197-meter nosedive... The plane was cruising at 37,000 feet when a fault in the air data inertial reference system caused the autopilot to disconnect. But even with the autopilot off, the plane's flight control computers still command key controls in order to protect the jet from dangerous conditions, such as stalling, the ATSB said."

"The captain woke us up at sunrise and said 'we're on our way to Auckland' and I thought, 'that's weird — I thought I was going to Sydney'," he said.

"He explained they'd been flying blind and he'd found an Air New Zealand jet to guide them in.

"There was no drama, no panic — it was absolutely beautifully handled (but) that's not to say I wasn't wondering why the (radar) antenna had gone."