Men Who Killed Qantas - Matthew Benns [3]
All 18 wheels were on the tarmac and the 250-tonne Boeing with 410 people on board was aquaplaning down the sodden runway at almost 300 kph.
The flight crew were applying maximum braking power as the jet crossed the end of the runway and flashed through the 100-metre stopway at 178 kph. Another 117 metres on, the plane crashed into the antennae of the airport’s Instrument Landing System, damaging the nose and right-wing landing gear, and shredding the tyres under the right wing. Still the plane ploughed on through trees and 103 metres of wet, boggy soil before coming to a standstill with its nose resting on the airport perimeter road right next to the third hole of the Royal Thai Air Force Golf Course.
It had taken just 41 horrifying seconds from the moment the wheels touched down until the nose gear collapsed and the jet came to a standstill.
But it was the long delays that occurred next that terrified the passengers. As the shaken first officer began the checklist and shut down the engines by selecting the fuel cut-off, the passengers could smell oil. Unbeknown to the people on board, the fuel tanks had survived the crash intact but hydraulic fluid was leaking from the shattered landing gear, and the passengers were afraid of fire. The emergency lights came on. Things were not helped by the lack of communication from the crew. The collapse of the nose gear meant it had been pushed up into the fuselage, forcing the cargo bay floor up by half a metre. This in turn had damaged the electronic rack support and cut off the cabin passenger address and interphone systems. The cockpit was operating in silence.
In the first-class cabin, senior International Olympic Committee member Kevan Gosper was on his way to Switzerland for an ethics and reform conference via London when the seasoned traveller found himself in the middle of a real-life drama. ‘It took some time to get down on to the tarmac and it seemed to float for a while. Then the brakes grabbed very hard. And then suddenly we shot off the end of the strip,’ he told Fairfax journalists.2
‘Quite a big section of the ceiling in our cabin flew out and the oxygen masks came down but the cabin compartments stayed intact. We were thrown forward in our seats as the plane was coming to a sudden stop,’ he said.3 ‘All the lights went out … inside panelling and internal arrangement were thrown about and there was a lot of disorder. We heard the nose wheel go and the plane dipped to one side. It was raining at the time. It was quite frightening. We didn’t know whether we were going to break up and catch fire.’4
At the rear of the plane, Dr James O’Brien remained in his seat for five nail-biting minutes as the air became hot, humid and smoky. He too was worried about fire and just how he would get out. The cabin was already lit only by the emergency lighting. ‘There were orders being shouted, apparently, but you couldn’t hear them … because the radio control system had broken down,’ he told reporters.5
Once the plane had come to a standstill, the tower controller radioed the pilots asking if it had cleared the runway. Visibility was so bad that the Thai authorities had no idea the plane had overshot and crashed through the perimeter of the airport. The first officer replied twice that the plane was in need of assistance, but the transmissions were weak and not understood by the controller.