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Qantas jet loses piece of fuselage

Qantas pilot Capt. John Francis Bartels looks at the damaged fuselage of a Qantas Airways Boeing 747-400 after it made an emergency landing Friday in Manila, Philippines. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
By PAUL ALEXANDER Associated Press
Qantas pilot Capt. John Francis Bartels looks at the damaged fuselage of a Qantas Airways Boeing 747-400 after it made an emergency landing Friday in Manila, Philippines. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

MANILA, Philippines – A hole the size of a small car in the underside of a Qantas jumbo jet carrying 346 passengers forced the pilot to make an emergency landing Friday after a rapid descent over the South China Sea.

The Boeing 747-400 was cruising at 29,000 feet when a loud bang rattled the plane. Video shot by a passenger shows people sitting with their oxygen masks on as the jet descended quickly to 10,000 feet. Applause erupted as the plane touched down safely.

There were no injuries, but some passengers vomited after disembarking, said Octavio Lina, Manila International Airport Authority deputy manager for operations.

An official at the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was not domestic, said initial reports show it was not related to terrorism.

“From the pictures coming in from Manila it’s quite evident that a section of the fuselage gave way in flight,” Jane’s Aviation expert Chris Yates said in a statement. “As a consequence of this the aircraft experienced rapid decompression. Fast action from the pilot and co-pilot ensured that all those aboard remained safe.”

Investigators will now determine whether metal fatigue or a manufacturing defect caused the panel to be ripped away from the remainder of the fuselage in flight, Yates said.

The aircraft appeared to be missing a plate of its metal skin at the joint where the front of the right wing attaches to the plane. A curved line of rivets was still visible on the body at the front edge where the sheet once was; a straight line of rivets is along the other.

Flight QF 30, from London to Melbourne, had just made a stopover in Hong Kong.

“One hour into the flight there was a big bang, then the plane started going down,” passenger Marina Scaffidi, 39, from Melbourne, told the Associated Press by phone from the Manila airport. “There was wind swirling around the plane and some condensation.”

She said the hole extended from the cargo hold into the passenger cabin.

“No one was very hysterical,” she said.

Qantas – Australia’s largest domestic and international airline – boasts a strong safety record and has never lost a jet to an accident, although there were crashes of smaller planes, the last in 1951. Since then, there have been no accident-related deaths on any Qantas jets.