Qantas 747 lands with gaping hole in the side

[LeeH]

Can't wait to find out what caused that to happen.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

It's Bush's fault.

[kach22i]

There goes a perfect safety record.

Was it Rain Man that said he would fly Quantas for that reason?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Nope, there was this one back in 2001:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/editorials/images/e00012_001.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/editorials/e00012.aspx&h=288&w=400&sz=44&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=R4n5exMi4LRMZM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dqantas%2Baccident%2Bbangkok%26um%3D1% 26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-USfficial%26hs%3DSYR%26sa%3DN

(Note: not bashing Qantas, their record is remarkable overall)

[cstreit]

Hey! That red duffel bag is mine..... Dammit!

[URY914]

Bondo.

[GothingNC]

Did someone forget to reset the code in Darma station #3??

[Moses]

Originally Posted by GothingNC

Did someone forget to reset the code in Darma station #3??

That was my first thought. Dammit Locke!

[stomachmonkey]

Did something blow a hole in it from the inside?

The hole edges are bent outwards.

Or could that have been caused by the skin tearing away, debris flying out of the cargo hold?

Someone is gonna need to go shopping for sure.

[IROC]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Did something blow a hole in it from the inside?

The internal pressure of the aircraft, I would presume. At 35,000 feet, the outside air pressure is something like 3.5 psi. If they pressurize the inside of the aircraft to something comfortable for humans (12 psi or so I would guess), you can see that the differential pressure works out to around 9 lbs of force per square inch on the inside of the fuselage. There's lots of square inches on the inside of a plane that large, so the forces are incredible.

Edit: 9 psi is 1296 lbs per sq foot, so section of the plane that large had literally tons of force acting on it.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by IROC

The internal pressure of the aircraft, I would presume. At 35,000 feet, the outside air pressure is something like 3.5 psi. If they pressurize the inside of the aircraft to something comfortable for humans (12 psi or so I would guess), you can see that the differential pressure works out to around 9 lbs of force per square inch on the inside of the fuselage. There's lots of square inches on the inside of a plane that large, so the forces are incredible.

Edit: 9 psi is 1296 lbs per sq foot, so section of the plane that large had literally tons of force acting on it.

Wow.

[Rick Lee]

I thought they said it was a problem with the door. This stuff is terrifying for me. I get the chills looking at the photos.

[Jeff Higgins]

There is no door in that area of the aircraft.

The hole looks worse than it is. Most of the damage is to the fiberglass wing to body fairing, or "A/C fairing". It is neither pressurized nor a structural part of the airframe. If you examine the photo, you will notice the bags are visible in what appears to be an "inner" hole, inboard of the A/C fairing. This is the actual hole in the structure. It took out what looks to be 6-7 stingers, but no frames. There is a "skin lap" in that area, or a top to bottom overlapping of the upper and lower skins. That's kind of significant, structurally. In addition, there is a pretty big wire bundle that passes through there. I bet it didn't do that bundle any good...

There is an oxygen bottle located in that area. My guess is that something happened to that bottle; it failed in some way. We'll see.

I might get a trip to Australia out of this one, anyway. Pretty easily repaired.

[Zef]

Originally Posted by IROC

The internal pressure of the aircraft, I would presume. At 35,000 feet, the outside air pressure is something like 3.5 psi. If they pressurize the inside of the aircraft to something comfortable for humans (12 psi or so I would guess), you can see that the differential pressure works out to around 9 lbs of force per square inch on the inside of the fuselage. There's lots of square inches on the inside of a plane that large, so the forces are incredible.

Edit: 9 psi is 1296 lbs per sq foot, so section of the plane that large had literally tons of force acting on it.

All this work as Delta P...differential pressure. Should be around 7 IMO.

[URY914]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

There is no door in that area of the aircraft.

The hole looks worse than it is. Most of the damage is to the fiberglass wing to body fairing, or "A/C fairing". It is neither pressurized nor a structural part of the airframe. If you examine the photo, you will notice the bags are visible in what appears to be an "inner" hole, inboard of the A/C fairing. This is the actual hole in the structure. It took out what looks to be 6-7 stingers, but no frames. There is a "skin lap" in that area, or a top to bottom overlapping of the upper and lower skins. That's kind of significant, structurally. In addition, there is a pretty big wire bundle that passes through there. I bet it didn't do that bundle any good...

There is an oxygen bottle located in that area. My guess is that something happened to that bottle; it failed in some way. We'll see.

I might get a trip to Australia out of this one, anyway. Pretty easily repaired.

Just what I was thinking too.

[Pazuzu]

I'm going to disagree with Jeff, just because we need more tension and fights in here today.


no way man, it was aliens, aliens with dirty nukes and they were trying to kill the koalas with a burning plane from the sky man!!!

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

I'm going to disagree with Jeff, just because we need more tension and fights in here today.


no way man, it was aliens, aliens with dirty nukes and they were trying to kill the koalas with a burning plane from the sky man!!!

O.k., let's get this straight once and for all. It was alien bigfoots (bigfeet?) time travelling from the future. They vanished through that hole just as soon as a stewardess noticed they smelled funny and couldn't speak English.

[Pazuzu]

Now you're just talkin' crazy. It may be Friday afternoon, but you still gotta wait until AFTER work to get loaded...

[aap1966]

Originally Posted by kach22i

There goes a perfect safety record.

Record still intact.
No deaths.

[sjf911]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

I'm going to disagree with Jeff, just because we need more tension and fights in here today.


no way man, it was aliens, aliens with dirty nukes and they were trying to kill the koalas with a burning plane from the sky man!!!

Wow, an alien nuke that fizzled? I thought they were supposed to be lightyears ahead of us.