The former head of safety for Qantas and now an aviation consultant Ron Bartsch says the aircraft involved has had an excellent safety record prior to this incident.
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00:00It's very early days, obviously, but obviously something very serious has happened.
00:09If it were a contained failure within the engine, the most likely cause would be possibly
00:17a separation of a blade that could be either a compressor blade or a turbine blade, and
00:23that could cause a fair bit of damage.
00:25So it's not an explosion per se, but it certainly causes a lot of damage to the aircraft and
00:31it's happening at the worst possible time of phase of flight.
00:35And would that be why some passengers talked about a loud bang?
00:39It would make that noise, would it?
00:41Correct, yes.
00:42Look, when you have a failure of a turbine and the parts of the engine's going through
00:47the rest of the engine, so it's not a great look within the engine point of view, but
00:55that may or may not have caused the bushfire because the turbine temperature's around
01:00about 800 degrees Celsius.
01:02So passengers would have heard something and they certainly would have probably noticed
01:06a decrease in the performance during takeoff.
01:09Right, which they certainly did report.
01:11Ron, how common or not is this?
01:16Not common, not common at all.
01:18I've been flying for 50 years now.
01:21I've never had a failure of an aircraft in any phase of flight, cruise, takeoff or landing
01:28on a commercial airliner.
01:29So it's a very rare occurrence, but pilots are trained for it.
01:33Obviously the pilots' trains responded properly during the emergency procedures training,
01:38but the fact that it happened just after what's known as V1, which is the decision speed,
01:44meant that the aircraft had to continue to fly because there wasn't sufficient runway
01:50to be able to pull up safely.
01:51So having an engine failure with a large number of people on board, I think there were 174
01:57passengers, 28 degrees Celsius, it's probably the worst possible time for an engine to fail.
02:04Right.
02:05Ron, as you say, you've flown many, many times.
02:08Talk us through what would have happened.
02:10Would a warning light have come on in the cockpit?
02:12And then what decisions is the pilot making?
02:16Look, the pilot would have noticed the failure straight away.
02:20There's indications in the flight deck, but there's also indications from a handling characteristic.
02:26So the pilot flying would have continued to fly.
02:30The other pilot would have handled the radio and emergency checks.
02:35And obviously they made the decision to come back and land, whether they dumped fuel or
02:39whatever.
02:40I'm not quite sure of this stage.
02:43But needless to say, it was a very, very good outcome to what was potentially a catastrophic
02:49situation.
02:50Yeah.
02:51And the pilot talked the passengers through it.
02:55How important is that?
02:57Look, I think it's from a passenger point of view and passenger appeal, it's a very
03:02important aspect.
03:03And from a PR point of view, I think that's something that is good for passengers.
03:08Because obviously 174 passengers are going to be very concerned, plus the crew on board
03:14and any information that's given that can alleviate those concerns is going to be, it's
03:20got to be a positive aspect.
03:22But number one thing with all pilots and that is to fly the aircraft.
03:27And that's obviously what they did.
03:28So Ron, would you have any concerns for other planes of the same build as this?
03:33Or is it a simple mechanical failure?
03:35Will there be an inquiry into why it wasn't spotted that it might have happened?
03:40Look, I know that Boeing has been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently with the
03:46failures associated with the new Boeing Max aircraft.
03:50But the difference is the Boeing 737-800 is a very popular aircraft throughout the world.
03:56It's got an excellent safety record.
03:59And indeed, it's in operation throughout Australia.
04:02So in terms of the actual aircraft and the engines that are fitted, it's a proven aircraft.
04:08So I don't think you're looking at any systemic problems, but obviously the ATSB will investigate
04:15the matter.
04:16They'll be looking at the cause or causal factors and trying to find out what actually
04:21caused this occurrence.