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A
VETERAN Qantas investigator on Sunday ruled out sabotage
or a terrorist attack as the cause of a ruptured
fuselage in one of its planes as it was flying at 29,000
feet in a flight to Melbourne, forcing it to land in
Manila.
The
aircraft, a Boeing 747-400, registered as flight QF30,
made an emergency landing at the Ninoy Aquino
International Airport on Friday and is now at the tarmac
of the Lufthansa Technik hangar, undergoing thorough
examination.
“There
was no evidence of safety issues or any security issues
onboard the aircraft,” said Neville Blyth, senior
transport investigator from the Australian Safety Bureau
following a press conference at the Naia boardroom
Sunday afternoon.
Also
present were Director General Ruben Ciron of the Civil
Aviation Authority of the Philippines, Executive
Director Daniel Dimagiba and Angel Atutubo, the
assistant manager for airport security and emergency
services.
According to Blyth, the Qantas accident would remain a
safety issue until more evidence is found to contradict
earlier findings.
The
Australian expert said the only hazard they have to deal
with while conducting initial investigation were the
pieces of materials that were scattered around the
aircraft cabin after it underwent rapid depressurization
during an emergency descent over the South China Sea.
The
airplane sustained a large rupture on its right side,
near where the wing meets the body of the airplane, and
10 to 15 square feet of outer aluminum skin was ripped
off from the double hull that comprised the fuselage.
The inner hull was intact, although a small hole more
than a foot in diameter could be seen, just below the
row of windows on the lower level of the plane, plugged
by what appears to be canvas material forcibly thrust
into it by whatever caused the blast.
Blyth said sniff dogs found no evidence of any explosive device or
residue; passenger luggage removed from the hull were
also negative for these.
However,
he said investigators also found that an oxygen
cylinder, about the size and shape of those used by
scuba divers, located near where the blast occurred, was
missing. “There is, I can say, a cylinder in the bank of
cylinders, there is one which is not present, which is
not accounted for in that area.”
Not
being an expert on B747s but in forensic-materials
engineering, BIyth said he does not know how many oxygen
cylinders were installed in that area, and said they
were clarifying the roles these oxygen cylinders play as
part of the safety system of the aircraft.
At the
moment, he added that grounding the fleet of B747-400s
by Qantas is an issue that would have to be addressed by
the Australian Civil Aviation Authority, not them.
The
matter was raised to preclude the occurrence of a
similar incident on the same models of B747s now flying
all over the world, since this particular aircraft has
been around since the ’70s.
The
“black boxes” have been recovered and were sent to
Canberra for analysis. These consist of the digital
flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder and the
quick access recorder, whose data would help
investigators pinpoint what caused the damage. |
