They’re still batting .1000–Qantas. They just don’t crash.
You’re familiar with the Airbus A380, yes? The largest commercial airliner in the air? One of the jets belonging to Qantas experienced a slight issue during a Sydney bound flight yesterday when one of the engines failed. While the A380 is still a relatively new design, the engine technology is well understood–which is why it’s so strange that there are multiple offerings coming from experts as to the cause of the failure–OK, perhaps it’s not so strange, but it’ll be interesting to find out what the cause was.
A bird strike, a small explosion, a chain reaction causing overheating and breakdown: Perhaps all of the above? The skilled pilots kept the plane in the air, even after slight damage to the wing made the aircraft more difficult to land. They made an emergency landing in Singapore (which is a nice place to land if you’re not going to make it to your hoped for destination), and Qantas subsequently grounded their A380 fleet for further inspection. Other airlines flying the aircraft have stated that they’ll continue to fly as normal.
There were 440 passengers aboard the heavy aircraft, and it took a reported two hours for everyone to exit the aircraft on the mobile stairway.
In honor of Qantas keeping it in the air, and carefully setting it back down on the ground…
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