Incidents onboard aircraft are rare, however when they do occur, they can be terrifying for passengers onboard; In the case of Qantas flight QF7 bound for Texas from Sydney airport in Australia, passengers did not even have the opportunity to board the aircraft before being told there was an incident onboard.

The Airbus A380 aircraft, registration VH-OQB, was being pushed-back out of Hanger 96 at Sydney airport following routine maintenance, when reportedly a door got caught up on hanger scaffolding and was nearly completely ripped off. The aircraft was due to operate the Texas bound QF7 route, before heading back to Sydney as QF8 – both flights had to be cancelled due to a lack of suitable aircraft. The airline responded: 

“We are working to minimize impacts to our customers and we apologize for any delays.”  

Further adding that passengers had been re-allocated onto alternative flights. The incident comes in the wake of the grounding of three further Qantas aircraft, Boeing 737s, which had failed routine inspections after cracks were found in the airframes.

Qantas operates a fleet of twelve Airbus A380s, the world’s largest commercial aircraft, with two currently undergoing refurbishment in Brisbane (Australia) and Abu Dhabi (UAE). This third A380 out of service, suspected to take two weeks to repair, will mean a reduced fleet of only 9 A380’s will operate across Qantas’ 218 route network. 

It is hard to imagine why checks were not carried out in advance to pushing the aircraft out the hanger; How can an aircraft door be open unnoticed? What are your thoughts? Get in touch via email, or in the comments below.

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