A Qantas flight departing from Sydney Airport subjected almost 100 passengers to several tense minutes on Tuesday night when pilots had to abort their take-off which resulted in two tyres being blown.

According to a Qantas spokeswoman, the airline is investigating the cause of the aborted take-off occurred about 6pm last night. Flight QF805 was a 737 aircraft was headed to Canberra when the mishap occurred.

The spokeswoman said; “The flight crew operated in accordance with their training at all times.” She also said that all 92 passengers were accommodated on later flights. The matter has been reported to the Air Transport Safety Bureau and Qantas will most definitely undertake a major investigation to uncover the problem.

Peter Somerville, general manager Australian and International Pilots Association said he was unaware of why the pilots elected to abandon the take-off. “I heard that it was parked on one of the taxi ways because of the significant difficulties,” he said. The incident left the plane stranded on the runway for some time.

Vice-president of Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, Wesley Bell, described the aborted take-off as a dangerous situation and said it would have been obvious to passengers that something was wrong. “It would be a rapid deceleration so they would certainly know what was going on. It is a dangerous situation but the people on the aircraft were in good hands.” he said. “It’s not a great situation, but the crews are well-trained and well-drilled for those occasions and Australian pilots are very well-trained.”

No one wanted to speculate on what could have prompted the pilots to abandon the take-off, but there are a couple of scenarios could have led to the blown tyres. The tyres could have blown because of the force of the sudden braking. The braking produces quite a bit of heat and it’s not uncommon for the tyres to let go. Or it may have simply been a flaw in the tyres.

According to Sydney Airport officials, the aborted flight did not disrupt any other flights.

www.qantas.com.au