Qantas jet narrowly avoids accident
08 January 2008Australia's national airline Qantas was nearly involved in a major accident when one of its planes lost all main electrical power.
The flight from London was forced to land using power supplied by the plane's battery back-up source.
Some 344 passengers were on board the plane, which was about 15 minutes away from Bangkok when the power failure occurred.
The battery system was used to keep the plane in the air for an hour before it was able to land.
Speaking to The Australian, an experienced 747 pilot said that the passengers on the plane were lucky that the incident did not occur while the plane was further out at sea.
"If this had happened over the ocean in the middle of the night, it would probably have crashed," the pilot said.
Fortunately, the plane was able to land safely, meaning that there was no need for passengers to rely on their travel insurance to cover medical costs.
Nine years ago a Qantas plane aquaplaned off the end of a runway at Bangkok airport, crashing through navigational equipment and ending up across a perimeter road 220 metres away.