Thursday, May 7, 2015

Jetstar Bubble Trouble

Bubble-baths can be lotsa fun, except when they get outta hand.
In Australia, the Qantas subsidiary airline Jetstar has had two of its A320s put out of action for a couple of weeks because of...bubbles!
A helluva lot of them!!
The planes were smothered in a sea of fire-retardant foam on 23 April, when wild storms raging through the Newcastle region of New South Wales triggered the fire system in a maintenance hangar. As you can see, just a tiny wee bit of tidying-up to do...!
Jetstar expects the A320s will be back in service by mid-May, but the airline needs to test wiring at its maintenance base first, before it can work on the planes.
The two narrowbodies affected when the fire system tripped were VH-VQW and VH-VQC. VH-VQW was completely inside the hangar and suffered damage to its engines, computer and electrical systems. VH-VQC had its nose inside the hangar at the time of the incident and suffered engine damage.
Well, if it's any consolation, at least Jetstar now knows its fire-retardant systems do work!

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