This explains it.

I think you will find that people on this forum take safety into consideration more than your average flyer.

With the amount of flying that most people on this forum do, the chances of anything going wrong increases the more they fly, hence why they are careful.

There are a number of enginerring deficiencies with all the major carriers and these have been discussed quite extensively on this forum over the years (don't get me started on SQ). You will never find an engineering department at any airline that is operating at an extensive level above that of best practice. This is just a sad fact of life.

Can you back this up with some math

Sure - 1 + 1 = 2 :)

I think what was meant, is that say an incident occurs 1 in a 1000 flights. The more flights you fly, the more chance you have of being on that one flight with an incident.

Makes sense in simple logic terms, but I am not a statistician so i expect someone to blow this out of the water now...

Point was, frequent flyers do care about safety.

Dear god don't let my wife see that - she worries about my travel too much already!

ALthough I generally disagree with adampenrith on most of his points - we do have to concede that the Board has made a decision to weigh up the cost of a hull loss + lives vs. teh cost of maintenance. If not then before every flight an army of mechanics would examine every nut bolt on board and holding it together. Businesses have to make those decisions - even by following the manufacturers guidelines they are implicitly doing this.

I do think though that people obsess about QF safety because of the safety record (in the Jet era) and the massive profits that they are making. Also people tend to focus on safety because the move of jobs offshore impacts australian workers and that is the main concern - their own jobs.

There is such a focus on QF at the moment that I am surprised we don't get a post every time one of the cabin crew cuts themselves opening the Champagne in F.

Back OT:

aubs on AFF has quoted from a PPRuNe post:There's now some discussion on acronyms ... :p

Qf12
 

Hey guys - just an FYI, my wife and I were on this QF 12, and the nose never lifted off the runway. It was a weird feeling, of course, half-asleep on an accelerating 747, followed by a sudden slamming of the brakes - it certainly wakes one up. There was no panic on the plane at all (at least back where we were - in the tail section - row 65). We heard tires ('tyres') squealing, but that's about all.

Immediately after the plane stopped, the pilot got on and said that a warning light had illuminated, so they had to abort the takeoff. He continued to note that because of this abort, the tires heat up very quickly, and may explode, so emergency vehicles and procedures will need to be followed. (I estimate that there were 'round 10 firetrucks, and many other random vehicles as well).

Right after that, the lead FA (CS agent?) came on and said (lectured?) something along the lines of: "During that aborted takeoff, the flight attendants asked you to brace. This is why you should all pay attention to the emergency procedure briefing prior to the flight." We never had anyone asking us to brace, or do anything of the sort. We heard later that the FAs in business (and/or first) told their pax to brace. So much for equality of safety measures.

I liked the lead FA's line of: "This is a very unusual procedure, and we do not do this often. We will have to engage in an abnormal disembarkation."

The whole process was lengthy, and annoying (of course), but not particularly troubling or frightening. My favorite part was when, still in the airport, we all lined up for the hotel checkoff procedure. After a 45 minute line, we got to the front, and they asked how many rooms we needed. We said 1, and they marked a single line on a sheet with a bunch of other lines on it. No checking of boarding pass, no ID, or anything. Of course, they checked the boarding passes at the LAX Hilton (another 45 minute line).

I asked the Qantas agents about a meal (b/c they give dinner meal on QF 12 leaving at 2230), and they said "we will give you a free breakfast." Ah well....

Thank you for the information. I found it quite interesting and enlightening.

It's strange you were not advised about the "Brace Procedure"; this is explained on the pre-flight video. Did they not show this?

There's the text of this spiel somewhere ...

Thanks. Don't get me wrong - the Brace Procedure was certainly described during the pre-flight video. But they specifically said something like "we asked you all to Brace during the aborted takeoff" - we never heard a thing over the PA system. Supposedly, in FC & Business, the FAs yelled out to their pax to brace.

The safety demo would most certainly would of explained this, however as is common with late night departures probably about 1 in 40 people are actually paying attention - based from my view (which is watching you either watching the video or sleeping)

The 'Brace" command can be triggered one of three ways. By PA from the flight deck or by a crew member if they feel the brace position is required. In a prepared ditching/emergency landing the flight deck will flash the seat belt sign when you should brace if required. A cabin crew triggered brace will only be repeated by other crew if it is heard.

I believe that stefanb01 was commenting that they never heard the FA ask anyone to brace.

I would assume the video was shown as per usual or if the IFE wasn't working the FA's would have acted it out.

That is very interesting - I didn't know about the No Smoking flashing signal. They don't mention that in the pre-flight video (I know, b/c I was sure to watch the whole thing when we took off on Tues), but I wonder if that's what the lead FA was referring to...

Overall, I liked how honest the FAs & pilot were. I feel that on AA (my preferred, if not 'favorite' airline), they would say "no need to be worried, nothing's wrong, etc etc." Here, they said "well, this is pretty abnormal, and we're not sure what's going to happen with you guys. We'll keep you updated." Of course, I would rather it have been on AA (get some bonus miles, maybe?)...

Sorry - I got stuff muddled up. It is not the no smoking sign it is the seat belt sign and it only flashes in a prepared ditching/emergency landing to advise when to brace and you would be notified of this in a emergency situation briefing prior to landing.

In a situation where the brace command is not expected to be used (like this) either a PA will come from the flight deck or if a cabin crew member feels it is necessary to brace, they can start yelling the command, and if heard by other crew, they will repeat the command.

The brace command will never be made over the PA if made by cabin crew - it will only ever be yelled.

I would write to QF and complain that you had to spend a night in LAX, that should be equal to at least the compensation of AVOiD not working :D.

Glad you are OK and thanks for sharing.

stefanb01, thanks for this report and glad that you are okay. There are FTer everywhere.... :)

Just write to Qantas, maybe you can get something out of this.