Qantas jet smoke a mystery
By Steve Creedy
29dec04
QANTAS engineers yesterday failed to find the cause of a smoking jet engine that earlier had sparked an alert at Sydney airport.
Air traffic controllers noticed smoke coming from the engine of a Qantas Boeing 767, which had 193 passengers on board, as it arrived from Melbourne about 9.50am yesterday.
Emergency services officials were called to inspect the aircraft, but found no signs of fire and it was allowed to proceed to the terminal.
“There was a puff of smoke as he was at the end of his landing roll,” a Qantas spokeswoman said.
“The captain shut down the engines as a precaution. The firemen attended but no fire was detected.”
Qantas officials initially suggested that excess hydraulic fluid might have leaked on to the hot engine.
One of the aircraft’s passengers later told Sydney radio station 2GB that the plane’s crew also had said the smoke was probably due to hydraulic fluid leaking on to a hot exhaust.
“The engineers came out to have a look, no drama at all,” he said. But an extensive investigation by the engineers failed to reveal the cause of the smoke.
“They’ve conducted every sort of investigation that they possibly can,” the Qantas spokeswoman said. “(But) there was no evidence of smoke or fire anywhere.
“They (conducted) a boroscope and there was no evidence of any foreign matter in the engine.
“All the cockpit information was normal and there was nothing irregular there.”
The 767 was returned to service yesterday afternoon after being given the official all-clear.
“The aircraft has been gone over with a fine-tooth comb, nothing was found to be out of order,” the spokeswoman said. “It’s back in service and humming along nicely.”
Qantas Group has 26 Boeing 767s which it uses on international and domestic routes.
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December 28, 2004 at 3:18 pm