A Qantas aircraft that made an emergency landing in Sydney after an engine failed yesterday could return to the skies as early as next week. Early inquiries have uncovered no evidence of a systemic problem with the 737 – the workhorse of the national carrier. The damaged turbine is now the subject of an urgent investigation.
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TVTranscript
00:00Turbine blades tore and bent as the passenger jet accelerated down the runway.
00:07If any of them had detached that would cause them to pass through the rest of the engine
00:13and cause the type of damage that we've seen.
00:17The right engine spat out hot blades, fragments are believed to have sparked a grass fire.
00:22Something has gone wrong in order for them to then separate and to come out the tail
00:27pipe so they could be anywhere up to sort of 800 degrees.
00:30The aircraft lost half its thrust after hitting a critical speed called V1, meaning it no
00:35longer had enough runway left to stop.
00:38You're committed to continue the take off.
00:40In the event of losing an engine it is still safe to take off and to climb and to return.
00:46And that's what the pilots did.
00:47The crew has done a magnificent job.
00:50The 737-800 is almost 20 years old.
00:54It's not necessarily an old aircraft by world standards, particularly if it's been well
01:00maintained.
01:01The maintenance records will now be scrutinised by investigators from the Australian Transport
01:05Safety Bureau.
01:06Qantas says recent industrial action by engineers has had no effect on maintenance operations.
01:13The 737-800 is a workhorse for Qantas, which has 75 of the aircraft, more than any other
01:19type.
01:20The airline plans to gradually replace the fleet over the next decade.
01:24We certainly don't expect that we're going to uncover any systemic failures or systemic
01:29weakness in the aircraft.
01:31The Bureau expects to deliver a preliminary report in the next two months.