One lesser-known mishap was the "Bahrain bomber" incident in 1969 when for two terrifying minutes a Qantas Boeing 707 went into a "inverted corkscrew dive" as a result of inconsistent technical information in the cockpit. Six Qantas aircraft were either shot down or disabled by the Japanese during World War II and the airline also suffered several fatal accidents in its first 20 years of operation.Īnd despite the airline's enviable fatality-free jet-age, there have been several near misses. Only heavy fuel load-like reserves of courage, skill and tenacity in the air and on the ground have saved it from other disasters, though there was one period when even those qualities were not wholly adequate. While Qantas's safety record is enviable, the centenary commemorations, and Raymond Babbitt himself, overlooked the full, and, at times calamitous, history of the de facto national carrier. "Internationally, it will obviously take some time for Qantas to come back, given not only the implications of the virus on overseas travel but its impact on the world economy," says Jim Eames, historian and author of The Flying Kangaroo and Courage in the Skies, published by Allen & Unwin. The oldest airline in the English-speaking world's beginnings in a dusty outback Queensland coincided with the last global pandemic, the Spanish flu scourge, which was at its zenith in the years 19.
Qantas was in expert marketing flight mode again last week with prominent - albeit more muted than planned - celebrations marking the centenary of its foundation by Hudson Fysh, Fergus McMaster and Paul McGinness. The last deadly Qantas accident was in 1951 when a de Havilland DH.84 Dragon crashed in the Central Highlands of New Guinea killing all three people aboard. In 1988, the year of Rain Man's release, there were 29 major airline fatal accidents and incidents compared with 22 in 2019, a year which rates as the safest, in fatality terms, in aviation since 1946.ĭustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in Rainman. The memorable "Qantas never crashes" scene - notably excised from the inflight versions of the movie by other world airlines with less illustrious safety records - coincided with an era when flying was riskier than it is today. When Raymond Babbitt, the autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man, named Qantas as the safest airline in the world, the Flying Kangaroo was showered with marketing manna from the heavens in which it operates.
COVID-19 has grounded much of Qantas' fleet, undermining the centenary celebrations.
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