Computer glitch may have caused Qantas incident
A computer glitch may have been responsible for a Qantas aircraft suddenly losing altitude
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Wednesday, 08, Oct 2008 01:04
Australian investigators have said that a computer glitch may have been responsible for a Qantas aircraft suddenly losing altitude.
Forty passengers were injured in the incident on Tuesday and the Airbus A330-300 was forced to make an emergency landing at Learmonth airport, western Australia, while travelling from Singapore to Perth.
Passengers are reported to have suffered fractures and lacerations following the "sudden change in altitude".
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has launched an investigation into what caused the plane to suddenly drop midair.
Julian Walsh, director of the ATSB, said that the pane had been flying at 37,000ft when the pilots received a warning about the plane's stability system.
The pilots are reported to have been in the midst of addressing the problem when the plane suddenly dropped in altitude.
"The pilots received electronic centralised aircraft monitoring messages in the cockpit, relating to some irregularity with the aircraft's elevator control system," Mr Walsh told reporters.
"The aircraft departed normal flight and climbed 300ft," he added later while on Australian radio. "The aircraft did that of its own accord and then, whilst the crew were doing the normal actions in response to that not normal situation, the aircraft then pitched down suddenly and quite rapidly."
Passengers have today spoken of their experience of the incident, which saw 14 people seriously injured.
Sky News quotes Keith Burns, from Lancashire, as saying: "It was like a hurricane inside... like a war zone. All of a sudden it dropped like a brick, a lead balloon and then it levelled off again and a couple seconds later it fell again.
"There were screams and all the interior was breaking all over the place."
In July, a Qantas Boeing 747 flying from Hong Kong to Melbourne was also forced to make an emergency landing after an oxygen cylinder exploded onboard creating a large hole in the aircraft's fuselage.