Wednesday's 'Mystery' Partially Solved

Rotation was a bit exaggerated Wednesday, as a Singapore Airlines 747-400 took off for a very short flight. For a while, though, no one knew just what caused a significant amount of damage to that big machine.

Some of the 368 passengers, and probably some of the 20 crew, told reporters noticed the plane used nearly all the runway, and kept its nose up for an unusually long time, as it struggled to leave the ground. Then it flew around Auckland, dumping fuel [that's what one report said -- another noted that, since there was a fire annunciator lit, the crew merely performed an overweight landing --ed], for another few minutes, and came back. That sortie took long enough that the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) heard none of the takeoff -- the tape loops every 1/2 hour, and the flight lasted just a few minutes too long.

People on the ground were horrified -- some said the plane looked like a flying, flaming wreck.
People in the aircraft were catching on, too -- the flight had gone nowhere, and here they were, coming back into Auckland, with a huge greeting party of safety vehicles, fire trucks, and ambulances all lined up. "Is that for us?" was probably heard more than once, in the cabin. We don't want to know what the reply might have been...

At any rate, crews on the ground got some video; nobody was seriously hurt; fifty or so flights, including four international flights, were delayed or sent elsewhere as the runway got swept up -- and a replacement plane was flown in, to pick up the hardy PAX.

The plane itself was nine years old, and had undergone heavy maintenance last month. The Transport Accident Commission promises a full investigation. Repairs are expected to take weeks, as the plane sits contentedly at Auckland.

FMI: www.singaporeair.com