Qantas Frequent Flyer - What happened on QF94 last Monday?

Anyone know why QF94 LAX-MEL landed at HNL then BRI before finally arriving in MEL 6 hours late on Monday Jan 13?

Isn't "BRI" the airport in Bari, Italy? If QF94 stopped there after HNL, it certainly was one hell'uva flight!

Oh yes, great start to my first post! Of course I meant BNE for Brisbane

I have no knowledge about what happened, but make the observation that if the flight left LAX and then diverted to HNL for certain reasons (e.g. medical emergency, rowdy passenger, ... lots of possible reasons that don't involve the mechanical ability of the airplane to continue trans-pacific) the pilots would most likely not have enough duty hours left to make the flight HNL-MEL and be legal to land. Also depending on runway length and temperatures, there may be a fuel load limitation leaving HNL (esp. if there is any cargo on board). Either reason could force a rescheduling to BNE, where QF can position a new flight crew. Somehow I doubt it was an engine failure, or smoke in the cargo hold, that caused the diversion to HNL in this case.

I phoned Qantas Reservations in the US RE: the flight in question and was told, "All I see in the flight record is that there was an equipment change." The agent didn't know if the change was done at HNL or BNE, though I rather think it was done at BNE if the flight was only 6 hours late...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by number_6:
... the pilots would most likely not have enough duty hours left to make the flight HNL-MEL and be legal to land. Also depending on runway length and temperatures, there may be a fuel load limitation leaving HNL (esp. if there is any cargo on board).</font>
Duty hours should not be a problem. QF operate trans Pacific with 4 tech crew - 1 Captain, 1 FO and 2 SO's. Captain or FO always on the flight deck with SO's. All 4 during takeoff/landing. Only two for most of cruise.

HNL runway length is also not a problem, especially for HNL-MEL at full belly on a 744. The only reason to divert to BNE would be a medical or mechanical emergency or if MEL was unavailable (due weather etc).

[This message has been edited by NM (edited 01-16-2003).]

From what you are saying this points to it not being a medical emergency (as the passenger would probably have got off in HNL then the plane should have continued to MEL) so the 2 unscheduled stops point to a mechanical fault. Curious?

QF has not filed an incident report with the FAA (these are viewable at FAA Preliminary Incident Data (http://www2.faa.gov/avr/aai/iirform.htm)). I think a filing is required, esp. as the diversion was from LAX to HNL, but not sure. If there is no incident it means this was a "scheduled" rerouting (maybe to accomodate high-priority cargo that QF really had to get out of LAX that day, and this was the only way to get the payload lift), or a passenger-related emergency and not involving any mechanical malfunction on the plane (even of non-flight systems). Usually the newspapers report in-flight incidents, so form your own opinion ...
(edited to fix the url link)

[This message has been edited by number_6 (edited 01-16-2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by rot8:
From what you are saying this points to it not being a medical emergency (as the passenger would probably have got off in HNL then the plane should have continued to MEL) so the 2 unscheduled stops point to a mechanical fault. Curious?</font>
Perhaps there were 2 unrelated (or even possibly related) medical problems? One causing a stop in HNL and another routing to BNE?

In times of very strong headwinds it is necessary for LAX-MEL to stop for fuel and HNL is a common place for that, so it is possible that HNL was a planned (but unscheduled - ie not in the published schedule) fuel stop. Then BNE might have been for other reasons (medical or mechanical).

But we can only guess and discuss possible reasons unless someone can find an official report from QF.