Qantas 216

This another made up story in my Air Crash Series. None of the

events in this actually happened. Qantas still remains the safest airline in the world.

Qantas 216

It was an ordinary day at Auckland International Airport as Qantas prepared to take-off. They had been stranded at Auckland after one of the Boeing 747-400’s engines malfunctioned. Luckily the engineers fixed it in a record 5 hours! Captain George Wall and First Officer Jeff Caloundra were scheduled to land at LAX at 24.45.pm NZET after leaving Brisbane at 9.15.am NZET. Flight Engineer Matthew Collins has invited a friend who was on the flight into the cockpit jump seat. “ Qantas 216 you are cleared for take-off runway 23L.”

“ Qantas 216 cleared for take-off runway 23L. Thrust full, flaps 10.” The roar of the engines get louder and the aircraft leaves the ground in 20 seconds.

Hijacked

The aircraft has just reached cruising altitude when the Captain. hears belts unbuckling. “ Stay in your seat gentlemen.”

“ NO! From now on the plane is under our control! Fly back to Australia!” There is a squawk code for hijackings, but with the hijackers in the cockpit, they can’t use it. Captain Wall uses special hand signals to tell the F/O to attack the hijackers. The F/O agrees. He gets up and walks away from the cockpit, pretending to use the lavatory. When he comes back he jumps on the armed offender and takes the gun. He knocks both of the hijackers out and sits back down. They start descending back to Auckland.

One of the hardest landings

“ SQUAWK77! SQUAWK77! Auckland we are coming for an emergency landing.”

“ Qantas 216 the runway is clear.” The hijackers have woken up.

“ Hey, where are you going. I said Australia.” The runway is in sight. They have to come in from the water surrounded north end because of wind direction.  “ Blow this thing Matthew!” BOOOM! A bomb goes off and the 747 starts falling. The F/O knocks the hijackers to the floor again. “ FULL POWER!” The engines roar.

“ TOO LATE!” The aircraft slams into the runway. The tail flips from the water and the aircraft starts furiously sliding along the ground. Metal screeching can be heard from across the water. The plane splits in 4 and comes to a fiery stop. The Captain is first out of his seat followed by the F/O. The F/O still has the gun and shoots the hijackers dead. Everyone apart from the hijackers are alive. The fire devastated Auckland Airport and it isn’t a full 2 months before it opens again. The crash itself, however, wasn’t anything for Qantas. It was Qantas’ first hull loss ( hull loss meaning destroying) crash and it still didn’t have any crash fatalities. The airline just keeps going like nothing happened.