Passenger Showed Qantas Co-Pilot Airbus Damage

It took five pilots to safely land the plane, report states
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 3, 2010 11:51 AM CST
Passenger Showed Qantas Co-Pilot Airbus Damage
In this Nov. 4, 2010 file photo, a damaged part of the left wing of a Qantas Airbus A380 is seen through a window of the passenger plane.   (AP Photo/Matthew Hewitt, File)

When the Qantas Airbus A380 engine blew apart on Nov. 4, it was a passenger who pointed out the extent of the damage. The passenger, who also just happened to be a pilot, was watching a tail camera feed on the plane's entertainment system when he noticed that the Airbus was trailing fluid from a punctured wing, Reuters reports. He showed the co-pilot, who was walking through the cabin.

More than a dozen system errors followed, and it took five experienced pilots to save the plane and land safely in Singapore. "The aircraft would not have arrived safely in Singapore without the focused and effective action of the flight crew," says the chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau following an ATSB report.
(More Qantas stories.)

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