Qantas 747 similar to the one involved

A Qantas Airlines Boeing 747 departing Hong Kong for Australia today suffered a rapid or explosive decompression at altitude and was forced to make an emergency descent followed by an emergency landing at Manila in the Philippines. All passengers and crew departed the aircraft safely.

There were a total of 346 passengers and 19 crew on board the aircraft when a section just forward of the starboard mainwing leading edge despressurised the hull. The crew apparently then initiated an emergency descent, oxygen masks being dropped for the passengers. The emergency descent is made in order to reach a safe altitude at which it is possible to breathe normally without oxygen assistance.

The aircraft then made a declared emergency landing at Manila in the Phillipines where the extent of the damage was photographed by news agencies. It appears from photographs that the front-most part of the fusealage ‘blister’ which blends the starboard wing-root is completely missing with a smaller hole through the pressure hull into the baggage compartment. Some debris is evident in the hole looking rather like loose items of luggage. It is probably fair to speculate that some passengers may find they are missing some items.

Some interviewed passengers recall the captain stating that there was a hole in a ‘door’. As far as I know, there isn’t a door at this section of the fuselage but there appears to be creasing near the foremost edge of the cabin exit door above the damaged area. This may have lead to a ‘door open’ alert on the flight deck. It is possibly worth noting that this door is entirely distinct from the large R5 cargo door which separated from United Airlines flight 811.

Aircraft Identity (This is not definitive information, do not treat it as such!)

Some of the pictures show the letters on the nose gear door to be ‘JK’. On Qantas aircraft this appears to be the last two letters of the aircraft registration for the purpose of identification while parked on the apron. If this is the case, this would indicate that the aircraft is VH-OJK, a Boeing 747-438, construction number 25067 built 1991. [Source]

Flight Number

The flight number is now being widely reported as QF30

Media Response

I actually found some quite responsible, restrained media reporting at the BBC online website. BBC television news was, however, it’s usual irresponsible self with a presenter trying to lead an interviewee into relating a story which did not exist. It is fair to say that pretty much everyone the including crew would be scared, you’d be inhuman not to be, but there was no real evidence of ‘panic’ or ‘terror’ as some news outlets would have you believe by their headlines. During the descent into Manila, as evidenced by video shot by a passenger, people remained relatively calm. The BBC quotes one passenger:

“Everyone was fairly calm, partly because they didn’t realise the extent of it,”

France 24 probably gets my award as the least sensational reporters (as of this time) as, despite having a rather short article, they just relate the facts as they were known and nothing else.

Britain’s famous Land Rover assembly lines will not be operating tomorrow or next Thursday as workers at the Solihull plant have been told to prepare for a ‘four-day week’.

The move by Land Rover management is believed to be as a result of diminished sales due to the UK credit crunch affecting both private and corporate car buyers.

The Solihull work force has been told to report as normal but will likely stand idle as the lines are shut down to save on power and material costs. This may also serve to prevent a large stockpile of vehicles forming which would be presumably expensive to store.

Land Rover was recently bought from Ford by Indian company Tata who have stated an intent to keep Land Rover manufacturing in the UK. However, the costs of the UK operation will undoubtly be playing on the minds of the board at Tata who will know they could call on far cheaper labour and facilities at their other plants across the globe.

My guess at Land Rover’s best course of action would be to press ahead swiftly with the development of the new ‘Baby Land Rover’, making it the lightest design possible and trying to squeak-out the highest possible fuel economy. A low price point would be beneficial too but there are many constraints on this, not least the soaring cost of raw materials.

uSwitch.com, a price comparison company has conducted a “Quality of Life Index” survey of 10 Western European countries which found the UK and Ireland to have the worst quality of life.

Spain and France came out on top with long life expentancies and generally lower costs.

The uSwitch survey notes that although the British have the highest net income after tax, they also have to pay some of the highest prices in Europe for fuel and power. Coupled with low expenditure on Education, fewer holidays and a late retirement age, Britain appears to be a pretty awful place to be living as a European.

I have to admit the uSwitch survey does have a rather biased feel for example the wording of:

Emigration: 41,026 Brits fled UK in 2006, the highest number in Europe, with total
emigration increasing by 30% in the UK since 2001.

(emphasis mine)

However, I can’t for the life of me work out the rationale for the bias. Perhaps uSwitch really do want to be ‘consumer champions’ or perhaps they have an ulterior motive.

Also noted is that the CPI figure stated in the survey report was out of date by the time the report embargo lifted (report states 3.3%, actual is 3.8%)

Download uSwitch report [PDF]

I read on Bloomberg earlier that the rate of increase in unemployment in the UK last month increased at it’s fastest rate since 1992 when Britain was in the depths of it’s last major recession.

That’s not to say that the total number unemployed is as bad (yet). The number current stands at 1.68 million unemployed (but obviously increasing fast) representing 5.2% of the potential workforce.

The latest job casualties appear to be with construction and developers who had previously been working to fill the UK property asset bubble with high density housing which is now proving almost unsalable. While some may indulge in scadenfreud over this, it’s worth remembering that there are large numbers hard working labourers being put out of work who may be difficult, if not impossible to retask.

The ONS reports that the CPI figure for UK inflation has jumped from 3.3% to 3.8% between May and June this year.

The is despite a slowing economy with much of the inflation being caused by the cost of hydrocarbon fuels and food. The Bank of England who’s remit it is to control inflation by setting the base interest rate seem to now be taking the position that there is ‘nothing they can do’.

Of course, if the BoE were actually doing what they profess to do and looking ‘two years ahead’ two years ago, they would have set interest rates to prevent the economy becoming overheated and we may be in less of a mess now. Unfortunately, the BoE’s own forecasts have been off-low in the past and this doesn’t fill one with a great deal of confidence.

I’d suggest that seeing as we have to buy fuels in other currencies, the correct way to reduce the cost of purchasing fuel would be to increase the BoE baserate which would have the effect of bolstering sterling. An increase in interest rates would likely have little effect on borrowing in the UK as the banks have long since detached themselves from the unrealistic baserate for private lending.

I’m still of the opinion that the long-term outside maximum projection for UK CPI inflation by the Bank of England could well be lower than the coming reality.

Tesla Motors, the young, Silicon Valley based electric automobile manufacturing company has begun delivering it’s flagship product; the Tesla Roadster.

The Tesla Roadster is a sharp-looking sports car, similar in looks and dimension to the world-famous British Lotus Elise. This is no coincidence as Lotus reportedly had a hand in the design of the Tesla Roadster and indeed, the Roadster shares some components with the Elise. The Tesla Roadster’s chassis is made in Norway and final assembly takes place at Lotus’ Hethel plant in the United Kingdom. The Roadster’s drivetrain is entirely battery-electric utilising a 53kWh lithium-ion battery pack and a 3-phase, 4-pole AC induction motor.

That may not mean much to those who haven’t been following the development of battery electric vehicles (EVs/BEVs) but it translates into an all-out sports car that can get from 0-60mph in 3.7 seconds and arrive at an electronically limited 125mph only moments later. The electric motor, unlike it’s internal-combustion counterparts delivers peak torque of 200lbf from zero rpm all the way up to 6,000rpm and produces a net 248bhp.

The whole package weighs around 1,220kg, almost twice that of a Lotus Elise but still surprisingly lightweight for a battery powered car. The weight shouldn’t be issue for the Tesla Roadster’s constantly available peak-torque to overcome.

Another impressive feature is the Tesla Roadster’s range. If you don’t drive everywhere at wide-open-throttle, you should have a range of 220 miles. As the Tesla has it’s own inverter-integrated charger, you should be able to recharge from the mains on arrival at your destination.

The news today is that Tesla are now delivering the Roadster to customers in California at the rate of 4 per week so this is a real, bona-fide production car.

Finally, FT.com reported earlier this year that Tesla plan to sell cars in Europe from the third quarter of 2008 initially at a price point of EUR100,000