When passengers of an Emirates flight got off the plane after landing safely in Brisbane, Australia, they saw a huge hole in the side of the plane. The plane was going 450 kilometres per hour when the accident happened on July 1, according to The Independent. After leaving Dubai, the Airbus A380 had a 14-hour flight that went smoothly and without any problems. A few passengers are said to have said that the thing might have happened either during or right after the plane took off.
Patrick, a passenger on the plane, was quoted in the Courier Mail of Australia as saying that he was worried when he heard a strange sound about 45 minutes into the trip. He said it sounded like a “loud blast” and that he could feel it through the floor. “The people working in the cabin didn’t freak out. Instead, they stopped serving food, got on the phone, and checked the wings and engines,” Mr. Patrick said.
The hole was made in the left-hand wing root fairing, which is part of the plane’s “skin” and is located where the wings meet the cabin to reduce drag while the plane is in the air.
According to a report in the Independent that cited Aviation Herald, the pilots of the flight called Air Traffic Control at Brisbane Airport just before landing to say that they thought they had blown a tyre on takeoff and wanted to be met by emergency services when they landed. This was done to let the emergency services know that they had asked to be met at the airport.
In an interview with The National, a newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates, a representative from Emirates said that the Airbus A380 has been sitting on the tarmac at Brisbane Airport ever since the event. The representative also said that the hole had no effect at all on the airplane’s fuselage, frame, or structure.
The airline claims that “during cruise, one of the aircraft’s 22 tyres burst, damaging a small portion of the aerodynamic fairing, which is an outside panel of the aircraft’s skin.”
It had no effect on the plane’s fuselage, frame, or structure at any time. The spokesman also said that the fairing had been completely replaced and that engineers, Airbus, and all relevant authorities had looked at it and given their approval.
It was said that no passengers were hurt in the accident.
