Aviation News

A TOURIST has told of his flight of terror when he claims an emergency exit on a superjumbo blew open at 27,000ft.

Briton David Reid and his son Lewis feared a bomb had gone off after hearing a “massive explosion” two hours into their flight on the brand new $376 million Emirates Airbus A380.

Freezing air blasted in and the cabin pressure plunged after the door in business class came nearly four centimetres ajar, leaving a gaping hole, Mr Reid told the Daily Mail.

As passengers wept in terror, he said, a petrified stewardess ran down the aisle and screamed “the door’s going to go” before cowering behind her seat.

Emirates Airbus A380 in Sydney mid-air engine explosion

Astonishingly, according to Mr Reid, instead of making an emergency landing, the crew decided to stuff blankets and pillows stuck together with gaffer tape into the hole and continue the flight despite a horrendous droning noise and sub-zero temperatures, as photographed by Mr Reid and his son.

The drama happened on Monday as the two Britons flew from Bangkok to Hong Kong as part of what was planned as a “trip of a lifetime” after Mr Reid had spent months battling leukaemia.

“We were about two hours in when suddenly there was a huge blast,” he said.

“It was a real shock, so loud that I thought a bomb might have gone off. Air was gushing into the cabin like a gale. The stewardess jumped up and stared at the door. Her face was drained white. She ran up the aisle, grabbed the intercom and started screaming, ‘The door’s going to go, the door’s going to go!’ Then she hid under her chair.

Emirates A380 emergency exit door partially opened after explosion. Source: Emirates

“Other passengers were crying and saying ‘We’re going to go down, we’re going to go down.’ It was complete panic. The emergency door was ajar and leaving a gaping hole. You could see straight out into the atmosphere, 27,000ft up.”

Mr Reid, who has a private pilot’s licence, said that after several moments of confusion, the cabin crew started grabbing blankets and pillows which they stuck together with duct tape to fill the gap.

“This is a state-of-the-art plane but they were using the most crude method you could imagine to try and plug the hole,” he said.

“The conditions were terrible for the rest of the flight. The door continued to make a horrendously loud droning sound which made it impossible to speak to each other. Worst of all, it was absolutely freezing.

“It was an extremely very nerve-wracking experience for everybody.”

He said cabin crew closed the curtain between business class to stop those in the economy cabin below discovering what was happening.

Mr Reid claims he suffered a chest infection following the ordeal and the pair had to cut short their $6,800 trip. His 18-year-old son reported the incident to the Department of Transport’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch who have passed it on to air investigators at the United Arab Emirates General Authority for Civil Aviation.

“We can confirm there was a whistling noise emanating from one of the doors on the A380 upper deck on flight EK384 between Bangkok and Hong Kong on Monday, February 11. At no point was the safety of the flight in jeopardy,” an Emirates spokesman said: .’

An Airbus spokesman said: “It is not possible for a cabin door to open on an A380 or on any aircraft whilst in flight, as doors open inwards and have locking mechanisms.”

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/emergency-exit-door-opened-in-explosion-on-emirates-airbus-a380/story-e6frfq80-1226579347708#ixzz2L1mouIIm

For more interesting articles to help you improve your Aviation English please visit http://aviationenglish.com and LIKE our Facebook Page

The US National Transportation Safety Board is investigating whether tiny fibre-like formations, known as dendrites, inside lithium-ion batteries could have played a role in battery failures on two Boeing 787 Dreamliners last month.

Dendrites – just one of several possible causes under investigation by the agency – accumulate as a battery is charged and discharged, and can cause short circuits, according to battery experts.

“As part of our continuing investigation, we are looking at whether dendrites may or may not have been a factor,” Kelly Nantel, director of public affairs for the NTSB, told Reuters in an email.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the NTSB was looking into dendrites, suggesting that investigators were looking at the tiny deposits as a major element in the probe.

Nantel said the NTSB has not ruled out any potential causes and that dendrites are “one of many things we are looking at” in determining what caused a battery aboard a parked Japan Airlines 787 to catch fire in Boston on Jan. 7.

“We are still considering several potential causes for the short circuiting” in the sixth of eight cells in the battery on the JAL plane, Nantel said.

NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said last week that a short circuit in the lithium-ion battery had caused the fire.

JAPAN PROBE

The Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) is investigating a second 787 battery incident that prompted an All Nippon Airways plane to make an emergency landing in western Japan on January 16. That battery showed signs of overheating.

Air safety regulators worldwide later grounded all 787s until the cause and a solution are found.

Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The planemaker completed what it called an uneventful test flight of a 787 on Saturday, its first since the lightweight, carbon-composite aircraft was grounded.

Nantel said other factors under investigation include the state of charge of each cell and the method and delivery of that charge, contamination, electrode folds, wrinkles and pinches, “and the assembly of the cells and battery.”

The NTSB is also looking at “the total design of the battery, including the physical separation of the cells, their electrical interconnections, and their thermal isolation from each other,” she added.

Reuters

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/tiny-fibres-may-have-caused-dreamliner-battery-failure-20130213-2ec4q.html#ixzz2KnJNeYUV

For more interesting articles to help you improve your Aviation English please visit http://aviationenglish.com and LIKE our Facebook Page

The Alaska Airlines plane landed safely after the co-pilot took control, and paramedics then tended the pilot, who was taken to hospital. A doctor who was travelling on the plane had also been able to help the pilot in the cabin.

A spokesman for the airline confirmed the incident, telling the news organisation Fox News that the pilot had lost consciousness "somewhere over Oregon".

The Boeing 737-700 had five crew members as well as 116 passengers and was flying from Los Angeles to Seattle. The unfortunated pilot concerned had been flying for the airline for 28 years and was up to date with his six-month medical evaluation, said the spokesman.

USA Today reports that this is the second such incident in a month. On January 22, the co-pilot on an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Las Vegas fainted.

The airline spokesman told the paper: "We do not believe there was a connection between the two incidents."

For more interesting articles to help you improve your Aviation English please visit http://aviationenglish.com and LIKE our Facebook Page

QANTAS had its own dramatic ”snakes on a plane” episode when a three-metre python joined passengers on an early morning flight to Papua New Guinea.

But unlike Samuel L. Jackson’s 2006 fictional Hollywood blockbuster in which a nest of vipers causes death and destruction on a jet, this reptile was concerned only with self-preservation.

QF191 was about 20 minutes into its 6.15am flight from Cairns to Port Moresby on Thursday when a woman pointed outside the plane and told cabin crew: ”There’s a snake on the wing … There’s its head and if you look closely you can see a fraction of its body.”

While some passengers scoffed in disbelief, she was correct.

”There’s no way it could be anything else,” he said. ”They’re common in north Queensland. They’re ambush predators and if there are rodents anywhere nearby, they’ll most likely be in the vicinity. They often find their way into tight ceiling spaces in houses, although I’ve never heard of one on a plane until now.”

One passenger, Robert Weber, a website designer in Cairns, said: ”The people at the front were oblivious to what was going on but the passengers at the back were all totally focused on the snake and how it might have got onto the aircraft.

”There was no panic. At no time did anyone stop to consider that there might be others on board.”

Mr Weber said initially the snake was tucked away ”quite neatly” but then the wind caught the last 30 centimetres of its tail, ”pulling him straight out”.

He said that from that moment, everyone watched on as the trip became ”a life and death struggle for the snake”.

”I felt quite sad for it, really. For the remainder of the flight, he was trying to pull himself back into the plane, even though he was fighting against 400km/h winds. The cabin crew told us that at cruising altitude, it was minus 12 degrees outside – but not even that was able to finish him.”

Mr Weber, who videoed the ultimately futile struggle, said both pilots took it in turns to visit the rear of the plane and watch as, several times, the snake hauled itself to safety, only to be dragged out again. As it slowly lost its grip, the wind repeatedly whipped it against the side of the plane, spraying blood across the engine.

The president of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, Paul Cousins, said: ”It appears as though the snake has initially crawled up inside the landing bay, maybe housed himself in there, and then crawled into the trailing ledge flap assembly.”

The snake would have been comfortable there but after the plane took off and the flaps moved back, it was probably shaken by the noise and vibration. Once it moved, it was caught in the wind. Mr Cousins said it would not have been possible for the snake to reach the cabin from its original location.

A Qantas spokeswoman said: “We have never heard of this happening before.”

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/high-drama-qantas-pythons-flying-circus-20130110-2ciu0.html#ixzz2HdzPkEBD

For more interesting articles to help you improve your Aviation English please visit http://aviationenglish.com and LIKE our Facebook Page.