Qantas says holed jumbo jet can be repaired

Australian airline Qantas will preserve its track record of never losing a jet plane in an accident by repairing a gaping hole in the side of a jetliner caused by an exploding oxygen bottle, the airline said Thursday.

The explosion last Friday during a flight from London to the Australian city of Melbourne forced the pilots of the Boeing 747-400 to rapidly descend thousands of feet and make an emergency landing in the Philippines with four instrument systems disabled, accident investigators said Wednesday.

But the world's second oldest airline after KLM Royal Dutch Airlines — regarded as one of the world's safest airlines — will repair the damaged jet, an airline spokesman said.

"We certainly believe it is repairable," the spokesman said under the company's usual condition of anonymity.

Paul Cousins of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, which represents 1,500 engineers employed by Australia's flagship airline, agreed that the aircraft appeared to be salvageable.

"I would expect Qantas to guard fairly closely their reputation for never having lost a jet aircraft, but in this particular case, from what I've seen from pictures, the aircraft is repairable," Cousins said.

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCBP leaders cut out of Trump ad buy decision

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAmerican passenger drafted goodbye texts to her family as Flydubai plane plummeted

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation pushes embattled New York prosecutor into national spotlight

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

Qantas raised eyebrows by spending almost $100 million on repairs to a 747-400 that ran off a runway during a storm in Bangkok in 1999 rather than writing the aircraft off.

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCBP leaders cut out of Trump ad buy decision

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAmerican passenger drafted goodbye texts to her family as Flydubai plane plummeted

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation pushes embattled New York prosecutor into national spotlight

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

But Cousins said engineers and pilots agreed that that aircraft "was as good as new" after the repairs.

A Qantas-leased Boeing 717 jet came close to being written off after a heavy landing in the Australian city of Darwin in February. But Cousins said the airframe was found to be undamaged and that aircraft was also repaired. No one was injured.

While Qantas has never lost a jet, a propeller-driven Lockheed Super Constellation owned by the airline crashed and burned during an aborted takeover at Mauritius in 1960. There were no casualties.