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What: Qantas Boeing 747 en route from Johannesburg to Australia
Where: Johannesburg
When: Nov 16, 2010, 7:20 p.m.
Who: 171 passengers
Why: After takeoff around 6pm, the Qantas jet—reportedly the same plane which turned back from Sydney to Buenos Aires on Nov 15 2010_ingested a bird into the number 2 engine,which caused a drop in power. The pilot made an emergency landing (80 minutes after takeoff) in Johannesburg with emergency vehicles on standby.

Passengers will be provided hotel accommodations and are expected to have flight accommodations on one of three options within 24 hours.

The damage to the number 2 engine is said to be limited to a turbine blade.

George’s Point of View

While it is no doubt that the media is overreacting to the current series of Qantas incidents, the airline’s reputation of being the world’s safest airline should be untarnished. Consider how their fleet is being squeezed by having to pull six A380 superjumbos because of the engine problem that Rolls Royce admits is their problem.

The rest of Qantas fleet must be scrambling to make up for the temporary loss of the A380s. Such is the perfect scenario-pushing the remaining fleet to the max-that will inevitably stress the “weakest links,” should there be any.

But a bird strike is a routine event, routine in the sense of being an inevitable phenomenon. Bird strikes happen. And when they do, so far, the Qantas pilots have been able to handle every contingency.