A Qantas Boeing 747 flying the London – Hong-Kong – Melbourne route had to make an emergency landing in Manilla. The NTSB initial press release mentions: “The airplane, Qantas flight 30, a B747-400, en route to Melbourne, Australia from Hong Kong, landed safely in Manila at 11:15 am local time. There were no reported injuries among the 346 passengers and 19 crewmembers. The aircraft has a 5 foot hole in the cargo area forward of the right wing leading edge and there is also some wing damage.“.

The oxygen masks were released in the cabin, and the flight descended from Flight Level 290 (29′000 feet) to 10′000 feet and landed safely in Manilla. A video from the cabin is available on Reuters BBC websites (see link below), showing passengers wearing the masks, and the some pictures of the flight information screen displaying an altitude of 10′000 feet.

Some media reports talk about how the aircraft “plunged”. From a passenger point of view, and emergency descent is certainly impressive, but it does not means that the aircraft is out of control or will crash. The purpose of such expeditious descents is to descend to altitudes which provide enough oxygen to allow people to breath normally.

Click here to read more about the mysteries of pressurization.

Aircraft and procedures are designed to cope with such situations, and crews are trained accordingly. Nevertheless, kudos the the Qantas crew who handled it perfectly: the plane landed safely, no one got hurt, and there are no panic signs on the videos.

Regarding the causes, as always, one have to wait the conclusions of the investigation. The NTSB, FAA and Boeing sent experts to support the investigators.

External links:

BBC video, incuding passenger interview and in-cabin images

Reuters video, including in-cabin images

Coverage of that event by CNN, with video