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SYDNEY—Qantas Airways Ltd., Asia’s third-largest
airline, will ground six of its Boeing 737-400 aircraft
toc ross-check maintenance records relating to
modifications made at one of its facilities in
Australia.
The
measure is procedural and doesn’t have any safety
implications, David Cox, the executive manager of Qantas
engineering, said in an e-mailed statement sent late
Tuesday.
“Qantas
discovered an irregularity with paperwork for these
aircraft during an internal integrity check of
maintenance records,” Cox said in the statement.
The
decision to remove the aircraft from service coincides
with a heightened scrutiny of Qantas’ safety record. The
Sydney based carrier’s maintenance operations are being
reviewed by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
The
review follows an incident July 25, when a Qantas
aircraft made an emergency landing in Manila after part
of its fuselage came off at 29,000 feet (8,800 meters).
A Qantas
flight was forced to return to Sydney on August 2 soon
after takeoff due to a fluid leak in a wing. A Qantas
flight en route to Melbourne returned to Adelaide
Airport after the doors covering a wheel bay refused to
close following takeoff, the Herald Sun newspaper
reported on July 28.
“We are
a conservative company,” chief executive officer Geoff
Dixon said in an Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio
interview on August 4. “We turn back on just about
anything and so we should. That’s the way we’ve operated
over the years and that’s why we have such a good
record.” (Bloomberg) |
