Passengers on a packed jumbo jet flight from London have spoken of their terror after a gaping hole appeared in the plane as it headed for Australia.
Some passengers vomited when oxygen masks had to be used as the Melbourne-bound Qantas Boeing 747 plane prepared to make an emergency landing at Manila in the Philippines.
Passengers spoke of hearing a loud bang and debris flying into the first class cabin as the plane's flooring gave way, part of the ceiling collapsed and the plane reportedly plunged 20,000ft.
The aircraft touched down safely at Manila at 11.15am local time and all 346 passengers and 19 crew disembarked normally.
Manila airport operations officer Ding Lima told local radio the plane lost cabin pressure shortly after take-off on the Hong Kong to Melbourne leg of its journey and the pilot radioed for an emergency landing.
He said: "There is a big hole in the belly of the aircraft near the right wing, about three metres in diameter.
"Upon disembarkation, there were some passengers who vomited. You can see in their faces that they were really scared."
Was it air pressure and a shody plane it did come from London. Maybe someone packed something they shouldnt have? amybe some dumb package handler chucked something in? Terrorists? Was it a flying duck i doubt it. Maybe it was Steve Fosset? If someone says UFO i will scream! probably mundane either way this could have been a proper disarster.
Originally posted by Makodragon: If it was a bomb there would have been a lot more damage. Corrosion has already been ruled out so I heard.
I don't think it has been ruled out as such - just that it has been confirmed that when work was done on corrosion on the aircraft earlier in the year, it was on seats rather than the aircraft itself.
Accidents similar to this have happened before but with much more tragic circumstances, these passengers and crew were very lucky. It's good to hear the plane landed ok with everybody ok
There was that plane in the US where the whole roof came off, a stewardess was ejected over the Pacific but no one else killed. That was a Boeing too, a 737.
This has happened before, and with disastrous consequences as someone else said, but lessons were apparently learnt from the earleir episode, and design changes implemented. Passengers apparently said, they could feel air rushing past their legs. This is because the design improvements are such that when a decompression occurs in the hold, a venting system allows air from the cabin to be sucked through the whole below the floor. Previously, there was no venting system, meaning the hold would instantly decompress and the pressure of the vacuum would then suck the floor out!! This way, at least the cabin floor remains intact (depending on size of the hole of course) buying the pilot time to descend to a safer height. Thats my understanding anyway.
Anyway, I'm glad they all made it to earth safely. Bet they're not looking forward to flying home again!
