A Qantas plane carrying passengers from yesterday's mid-air ordeal, which saw a Boeing-747-400 make an emergency landing in the Phillipines, has touched down in Melbourne.
Passengers recalled their experience to the large media pack that greeted them at Melbourne airport this morning after their arrival from Manila.
"There was a bang and it felt like the air pressure in the aircraft had changed and all the air masks and everything came down," said Melbourne man Owen Phillips.
Look at the Photo Gallery - Qantas emergency landing. That was a detonation in a baggage container that also did some damage in the passenger cabin by the emergency door over the wing root leading edge.
No fire blackening which might indicate a TATP type detonation which does not, on its own, generate much heat. This may very well be what a "liquid explosive" event looks like. As predicted, the chances of using such a device to knock down a plane are slim to vanishing.
The real question is whether someone got it through the security theatre performance at Heathrow or Hong Kong because we have paid a lot in lost resources, time and freedom to prevent exactly this happening.
I like that term 'security theater' it makes for a good show doesn't.
Posted by: Branedy | July 29, 2008 at 03:27 AM
Guilty to plagiarism, its a Bruce Schneier term I think. He has a great blog worth checking.
Glad I hedged the bets above, although with the latest little maintenance glitch (a door on an Adelaide-Melbourne flight opened 10 minutes into the trip) my QANTAS trips might be a little more doubtful for a while.
Question: how many of these will it be before the "savings" in maintenance costs are exceeded by the damage to passenger numbers?
Posted by: Earl Mardle | July 29, 2008 at 07:59 AM