Aviation

29.7, emergency landing

Australia: investigators found fragments that appear to bolster the theory that an oxygen tank exploded on board a Qantas Boeing 747-438 (VH-OJK) as it flew over the South China Sea on a flight from London to Sydney. The explosion forced the aircraft to make an emergency landing with a car-sized hole in its fuselage. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said a valve and other small fragments would be tested to determine if they came from the tank, which is designed to provide oxygen to passengers during an emergency. The ATSB said the fragments were found in the passenger cabin close to where the missing tank was stored in the cargo hold, along with five other cylinders. The ATSB said it would take several days to download information from the aircraft flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. The ATSB said it was unaware of any previous cases in which an oxygen tank caused an airline accident. Qantas ordered all oxygen tanks on its fleet of Boeing 747-400s to be urgently inspected. Some passengers told Australian media that their oxygen masks failed to work properly during the crisis, leading some to nearly pass out. The US Federal Aviation Administration earlier warned airlines to inspect oxygen cylinders on their aircraft. Quantas said that the FAA directive applied to a different type of oxygen system than the one being scrutinised in the Qantas incident.