Qantas A380 Floods, Returns To LAX

a large airplane taking off
image from wikicommons

Kim, Lucas and I were sitting in a local fast food joint in Omaha, Nebraska yesterday when a scary story came on the news.

A Qantas A380 flying from Los Angeles to Melbourne had to return back to LAX an hour into the flight due to a water leak which caused flooding onboard. The news story showed footage of the plane with water flowing down the aisles. It was definitely a sight that I never want to see in-person.

When we finally got to our hotel in Kansas City late last night, I had to look into the story and find out more of the details.

a person standing in a hallway
image from @Y7News on Twitter

Here is what I learned from USA Today.

  • A burst water pipe sent water down the aisles of the plane
  • The flight took off at 12:14 AM ET and landed back at LAX around 2:40 AM
  • Qantas confirmed that the flight turned around due to a water leak onboard
  • The A.P. said “water ran down stairs in the cabin and dripped onto passengers seated in the lower deck. Some people were moved to drier areas of the plane.”
  • Qantas said “crew on board did everything they could to help customers, including moving them to unaffected areas and providing spare blankets so they could stay dry.
  • Qantas provided passengers with hotel accommodations while the issues were being worked on.
  • There were no safety issues and the plane was turned around “in the interests of passenger comfort“.

Have you ever had a scary situation happen during a flight? Luckily I haven’t and hope it stays that way.

Find out more in the USA Today article here.

3 thoughts on “Qantas A380 Floods, Returns To LAX

  1. Rob- That does sound pretty awful and scray. I’m not sure if it is allowed, but if I was in that situation I’d rather hear the pilot tell a little white lie and say the issue was something other than engine trouble!

    Joe- I’m sure you’ll be fine. Enjoy Australia!

  2. Wow, I am taking this flight, but from MEL to LAX, in two weeks. Tonight is LAX to SYD for me. Hopefully nothing like this happens!

  3. On a recent flight we took off from PHX en route to PHL. It was obvious about ten minutes into the flight something was wrong as we were flying around PHX instead of east to PHL. About 30 minutes in the pilot informed us they were having engine trouble and it wasn’t safe to fly the plane to PHL. We had to circle the PHX area for about 3.5 hours because they couldn’t land the plane with all the fuel. We ended up landing, switching planes and getting to PHL, but for those four hours it was pretty unnerving. There were some people on the flight that were pretty scared.

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