Qantas captain gets wild applause for safe emergency landing

MANILA, Philippines - Wild applause greeted the Captain John Francis Bartels as soon as his mostly Australian passengers recognized him at pre-departure area of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1. "Job well done!" some passengers shouted. Bartels had just successfully made an emergency landing of his Qantas B747 plane, which was bound from London to Melbourne, via Hong Kong, when it had some "pressurization trouble" at an altitude of 29,000 feet over the South China Sea. Flight QF 30 touched down at 11:12 a.m. and was immediately trailed by firetrucks and ambulances from the airport rescue and emergency unit. Nothing untoward happened as the airplane came to a stop at the end of runway 24, where it remained for 30 minutes until a tow truck pulled it away. The 343 passengers and about a dozen crew members got down at NAIA Terminal 1. Large gash When the plane finally berthed at parking bay number 4, airport authorities found a large gash on the right-hand side of the plane, measuring about 15 square meters. They found out that the plane’s outer aluminum shell had been blown off near the intersection of the wing and the airplane’s body, near the belly where the luggage are stored. A large piece of what appears to be canvas and a red piece of insulation material stuck out of the fuselage, as though an explosion from the inside pushed out them out. But authorities did not see any sign of burning to show that the blown off area was caused by explosives. An aircraft mechanic on the tarmac, viewing the plane, said that luckily, there were no control wires or hydraulic or pneumatic tubing on the right-hand side of the plane, because all of them were located on the left-hand side. Otherwise, the flight controls could have been affected and the pilot might have a hard time maneuvering the plane. The plane was eventually towed back to the Lufthansa Teknik hangar where it would undergo forensic examination to determine the actual cause of the blast. Meanwhile, the passengers were taken to a hotel after waiting for about an hour at the pre-departure area, where they were briefed by the pilot as to what went on. 'Terrible' "People will guess for ages," Bartels said to one of passengers, but gave no explanation for the cause of the damage to his plane. They appeared grateful that the pilot was able to bring down the airplane safely and no one among them was hurt or injured. But Tamara Reinisch, going back to Melbourne after a visit to London, said it was a harrowing experience. "That’s terrible," she said. "I heard a big bang, people are crying, babies are screaming and many were grappling how to put on the oxygen mask." For a moment, she was stunned. "We were at 30 thousand feet and I wonder how we would be able to get down," she said. Sam White, who was with friend Tom Hood, both in their early 20’s said: “There was a big bump, like a gush of wind and we felt the pressure drop." "It’s surreal, it was like a dream," White said of his experience, He recalled immediately putting on the oxygen mask that dropped on his lap from the ceiling. Anthony Maher, who was with wife Rachel and two-year-old daughter, heard a loud sound. "It’s like a door opening," he said, adding that, like everyone else, they donned the oxygen mask that fell from the ceiling and prayed that they would make it to safety. When told that the B747 is a very safe plane and has been around since the 70’s, Mrs. Maher said: "That’s easy for you to say. Perhaps, the B747 has been around too long." John Vanharen, a sheep raiser from Tasmania, appears unaffected by the incident. "That’s no big deal," he said, saying that he came from London. On the stopver at Hong Kong, he sold some of the wool he harvested from his 3,000 sheep. When the Qantas plane was pulled out of Bay number 4 to be brought to the hangar for inspection, it suddenly aligned itself in full view of the passengers, showing where a large piece of the fuselage was ripped away. The passengers rushed to the window and those with cameras started clicking away. They were told that some of them would be transferred to another plane, either with Qantas or another airline, that would arrive to take them all back to Melbourne. - GMANews.TV