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VH-OQA operated Qantas’ first long-haul A380 service from Melbourne to Los Angeles in October 2008. (Rob Finlayson)
Slaying the black swan
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When the engine of a Qantas A380 exploded shortly after take-off from Singapore in 2010, the world expected catastrophe – but saw a miracle, instead. Fifteen years on from flight QF32, Captain Richard de Crespigny shares the memories and lessons from Australia’s worst air disaster that never was.
When Qantas Captain Richard Champion de Crespigny and his flight crew – First Officer Matt Hicks and Second Officer Mark Johnson, as well as Senior Check Captain Dave Evans and Check Captain Harry Wubben – showed up at Singapore’s Changi Airport on the morning of 4 November 2010, it seemed like a routine flight to Sydney was all they needed to expect. The aircraft, VH-OQA “Nancy-Bird Walton”, was Qantas’ first A380, then just two years old and state-of-the-art, was powered by four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines, and was set to carry 440 passengers and 29 crew on the roughly eight-hour flight.
Only 39 A380s were operating worldwide at the time, with six in the Qantas fleet, compared to almost 160 today, with 10 at Qantas (two others having been scrapped). Recalling those first years of the A380, Captain de Crespigny – who was in 2010 a seasoned pilot with 35 years of flying under his belt – tells Australian Aviation of the excitement of the modern flight deck with fly-by-wire controls, the quiet engines with soundproofed cabin and cockpit, and the many other improvements over older four-engine jets like the Boeing 747.
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