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Oxygen Tank Blowup Likely Culprit in Qantas Explosion

Speculation about what blew a 10-foot gash in the fuselage of Qantas Flight 30 started almost as soon as the Boeing 747 made its dramatic emergency landing in Manila. Terrorism? Metal corrosion? Spilled coffee? (Yes, that's actually a theory being considered). But it looks like an oxygen tank in the cargo hold exploded. A blown oxygen cylinder was a leading theory from the start of the investigation into Friday's mishap in part because the tank - which, ironically, provides oxygen to the cabin in an emergency - was missing from the cargo hold when when the plane landed. That theory was bolstered today when Australian investigators found a valve and metal fragments that most likely came from the missing cylinder, making it all the more likely the tank blew up and caused the hole. "Now we know that it was the tank that exploded, and that's good," Todd Curtis, an aviation safety expert with Airsafe, told Wired.com. "But tracking down the sequence of events that led to the explosion is more important." No one knows for sure how or why the cylinder blew. "There isn't really an easy answer," says Curtis.  "I've never seen an instance where a cylinder exploded on a 747 like this. It's unusual." Maybe so, but that's not stopping people from speculating (and keep in mind, it's all speculation at this point): the tank got too hot. Something in the hold punctured it. The regulator valve was faulty.    And then there's the back and forth about whether all the rules had been followed. In May, the FAA ordered airlines including Qantas to examine the brackets holding oxygen tanks in place and replace them as needed. The media has latched onto this with attention grabbing headlines like "FAA Warned of Oxygen Tank Damage Before Qantas Jet Hole". If those reporters had done their homework, they'd know the FAA directive didn't apply to the plane in question, and in any case Qantas had already responded to a similar safety bulletin from Boeing. The discovery of the oxygen cylinder valve is likely to put to rest some of the other theories floating around out there. Early on, some alarmists wondered out loud if the explosion was the work of freedom-hating tourists, but investigators didn't find any bomb fragments or explosive residue in the hold. Another slightly wacky idea is a spilled cup of coffee leaked through the floor of the plane, causing corrosion that weakened the fuselage. Curtis says that this line of reasoning "doesn't make much sense" because it would have had to been an ongoing leak, and that's highly unlikely since there are no galleys or lavatories in the area where the blast occurred.  Curtis also said that the Qantas incident bears little similarity to the 1996 ValueJet crash in the Everglades. "They both involved canisters, but the similarities end there," he says adding that the press should stop connecting the two events. Photo courtesy of Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Passenger Video of Qantas Jet Landing 'With A Big Hole'

For an industry with an enviable safety record, the emergency landing of a Qantas 747 in Manila on Friday is a big deal. There's a huge investigation underway as to what caused the giant gash in the fuselage of QF 30 en route from Manila to London to Melbourne via Hong Kong, and we're working on a post examining the theory that an oxygen tank exploded, and what's happening with the ongoing investigation. But first, we want to take a look at exactly what happened inside the cabin that day. While I would have been hanging on for dear life, one of the 346 passengers and 19 crew who had it together actually used her cellphone to record the final minutes of the flight and its safe arrival in Melbourne Manila. It's on YouTube, and you can see it after the jump. Our first impression after watching this video? The situation was definitely an emergency, but perhaps not the near-catastrophe some in the press are making it out to be. For one thing, it seems pretty calm aboard the jet. There's a little screaming during the first few seconds of the video, but people remain seated and there aren't SkyMall catalogs flying through the cabin. It's loud, but it's hard to tell if this is ordinary engine noise or due to the gaping hole in the fuselage. A few people are bracing themselves with their arms against the seat in front of them (we would have been among them), but most don't bother with that. Were the flight attendants too busy to get everyone into the crash position or was it deemed unnecessary? One strange thing: The seat-back monitors were left on, which means passengers could see exactly how fast the plane was losing speed and altitude. Of course the crew had better things to do than mess with the in-flight entertainment system, but this must have been terrifying for passengers to watch, especially during the 6,000-foot emergency descent. And finally: It looks like passengers disembarked via jetway and stairs, not the emergency slides. If this had been a life-threatening emergency, those slides would have been out in a minute. This almost eerily calm video seems to contradict some media reports of chaos inside the cabin. One story quotes passengers who say they had to share masks or smash ceiling panels to get at them, and that children were screaming and turning blue. Another passenger says his mask fell off his face because the elastic headband had deteriorated. You can see lots of masks hanging from the ceiling in the video. If these stories are true (and why would passengers lie?) then either the crew did an amazing job of getting people calmed down before the landing or the video didn't capture the full extent of the situation. From where the filming passenger sat it looks bad, but it doesn't look like a free for all. We'll have more on what happened soon. Photo courtesy Ninoy Aquino International Airport.