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Qantas Airways has 2nd safety scare, flight returns

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-29 17:03

A Qantas jet bound for Melbourne returned to Adelaide after a door above one wheel would not retract, the Australian media reported Tuesday.

This is the second safety scare for Qantas Airways in less than a week just three days after a near-disaster aboard an international flight that forced an emergency landing in the Philippines.

Security personnel stand under the hole of a passenger plane of Australia's Qantas Airway at International Airport in Manila, capital of the Philippines, on July 25, 2008. The Boeing 747 plane carrying 350 passengers and 16 crew members made an emergency landing here Friday morning, leaving no casualties. [Xinhua]

Qantas insisted Monday's landing in Adelaide was strictly a precaution and the plane was never in danger, but passengers already jittery over the Philippines incident described panic inside the Melbourne-bound plane after the pilot announced there was a problem.

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"It was absolute chaos on the plane, and then they had to turn it around and bring it back to Adelaide," passenger Gunter Kubler of South Africa told media. "They had to bring in another plane to fly people back, but I don't trust them, so I will take a bus or a train to Melbourne."

Airline spokeswoman Sophia Connolly on Tuesday insisted everyone on board the flight remained calm.

"Qantas flight 692 operating between Adelaide and Melbourne performed a routine 'air turn-back' shortly after takeoff, due to an indication of one of the landing gear doors failing to retract," Connolly said, reading a prepared statement.

On Friday, a Qantas jumbo jet on its way from London to Melbourne made an emergency landing in the Philippines with a hole the size a small car in its fuselage. Investigators say the hole may have been caused by an exploding oxygen cylinder.