For an industry with an enviable safety record, the emergency landing of a Qantas 747 in Manila on Friday is a big deal. There's a huge investigation underway as to what caused the giant gash in the fuselage of QF 30 en route from Manila to London to Melbourne via Hong Kong, and we're working on a post examining the theory that an oxygen tank exploded, and what's happening with the ongoing investigation.
But first, we want to take a look at exactly what happened inside the cabin that day. While I would have been hanging on for dear life, one of the 346 passengers and 19 crew who had it together actually used her cellphone to record the final minutes of the flight and its safe arrival in Melbourne Manila. It's on YouTube, and you can see it after the jump.
Our first impression after watching this video? The situation was definitely an emergency, but perhaps not the near-catastrophe some in the press are making it out to be.
For one thing, it seems pretty calm aboard the jet. There's a little screaming during the first few seconds of the video, but people remain seated and there aren't SkyMall catalogs flying through the cabin. It's loud, but it's hard to tell if this is ordinary engine noise or due to the gaping hole in the fuselage. A few people are bracing themselves with their arms against the seat in front of them (we would have been among them), but most don't bother with that. Were the flight attendants too busy to get everyone into the crash position or was it deemed unnecessary?
One strange thing: The seat-back monitors were left on, which means passengers could see exactly how fast the plane was losing speed and altitude. Of course the crew had better things to do than mess with the in-flight entertainment system, but this must have been terrifying for passengers to watch, especially during the 6,000-foot emergency descent.
And finally: It looks like passengers disembarked via jetway and stairs, not the emergency slides. If this had been a life-threatening emergency, those slides would have been out in a minute.
This almost eerily calm video seems to contradict some media reports of chaos inside the cabin. One story quotes passengers who say they had to share masks or smash ceiling panels to get at them, and that children were screaming and turning blue. Another passenger says his mask fell off his face because the elastic headband had deteriorated. You can see lots of masks hanging from the ceiling in the video.
If these stories are true (and why would passengers lie?) then either the crew did an amazing job of getting people calmed down before the landing or the video didn't capture the full extent of the situation. From where the filming passenger sat it looks bad, but it doesn't look like a free for all.
We'll have more on what happened soon.
Photo courtesy Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU7kIqC9XEo
