Men Who Killed Qantas - Matthew Benns [108]
Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon displays his marketing flair introducing new Qantas ambassador, Hollywood star and aircraft fanatic John Travolta, in 2002. (Krista Niles/AP)
Qantas ambassador John Travolta launches Jetstar with Alan Joyce (in front of Travolta to his left) and Magda Szubanski, in Sydney, 2004. (William West/AFP/Getty Images)
Woman of steel: Qantas chairman Margaret Jackson as seen by the Daily Telegraph’s Eric Lobbecke in August 2004 as she battled the Federal Government for what she called a level playing field – Qantas paying the same low tax as other international airlines. (Newspix/News Ltd)
The hug that said it all … Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon and chairman Margaret Jackson at a news conference to announce the proposed sale of Qantas to TPG/Macquarie. (Newspix/News Ltd)
Lisa Robertson, English Patient star Ralph Fienne’s favourite hostie. She was sacked after her mile-high-club antics with the actor appeared in the press. It later emerged she had supplemented her hostess wages by moonlighting as a prostitute. (Nigel Wright)
Designer Hans Hulsbosch displays his new, streamlined kangaroo logo on a model of a Qantas Airbus 380, Sydney, 2007. The latest variation on a theme, originally adapted from the old penny coin, was first painted beneath the cockpit of a Qantas Liberator aircraft in 1944. Qantas became known as the flying kangaroo when wings were added to that design in 1947. (AFP/Newspix/News Ltd)
New generation … Qantas CEO Alan Joyce attends a press conference in Toulouse, France, in 2008, before the delivery ceremony of the first A380 to Qantas. (Pascal Parrot/Getty Images)
The damage to the fuselage of a Qantas 747-400 in 2008 after the number four oxygen tank exploded in the hold, causing rapid depressurisation in the cabin and forcing the pilot to drop from 10,000 to 3,000 metres. The pilot landed safely in Manila on back-up controls.
The damage inside the aeroplane after the oxygen bottle had punched through the floor, hit the door handle and smashed into the overhead locker, before being sucked back through the hole and being lost, probably in the South China Sea.
(Fairfax Photos)
QF32 safely back on the ground. Clearly visible is the damage to the Qantas A380 Rolls Royce engine that spectacularly failed, causing enormous damage to the wing and flight-control systems, after take-off from Singapore. Only half of the engine cowling remains – the other half, with the Qantas flying kangaroo logo, was photographed being held up by residents on the Indonesian island of Batam. (STR/epa/Corbis)
ABBREVIATIONS
ACCC
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
ADIRU
air data inertial reference unit
AGM
annual general meeting
ALAEA
Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers’ Association
APA
Airline Partners Australia
APU
auxiliary power unit
ASIC
Australian Securities and Investment Commission
ASIR
Air Safety Incident Report
ATSB
Air Transport Safety Bureau
BA
British Airways
BCPA
British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines
BOAC
British Overseas Airways Corporation
CASA
Civil Aviation Safety Authority
CVR
cockpit voice recorder
FDR
flight data recorder
IATA
International Air Transport Association
PAN
emergency priority broadcast
QAR
quick access recorder
QEA
Qantas Empire Airways
RAAF
Royal Australian Air Force
RAF
Royal Air Force
TAA
Trans-Australia Airlines
TEAL
Tasman Empire Airways
TOA
Trans Oceanic Airways
TWU
Transport Workers’ Union
NOTES
QF1
Cut-price touchdown
1 Information about the events described in this chapter in relation to QF1’s landing in Bangkok, and the dialogue between air crew personnel, comes from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau Report, number 199904538, ‘Boeing 747-438, VH-OJH Bangkok, Thailand’, published on 23 September 1999.
2 Darren Goodsir and Joseph Kerr with Stathi Paxinos, ‘Welcome to Bangkok’, Age, 26 April 2001.
3 Robert Wainwright and Joseph