World | Australia
Laptop likely cause of Qantas plane nosedive
Air safety investigators are exploring whether interference from a US-Australian naval transmitter or even a passenger's laptop caused a Qantas jetliner to nose-dive twice over the Australian coast last month, an official said on Friday.
- Agencies
- Published: 23:21 November 14, 2008
Canberra: Air safety investigators are exploring whether interference from a US-Australian naval transmitter or even a passenger's laptop caused a Qantas jetliner to nose-dive twice over the Australian coast last month, an official said on Friday.
Initial investigations of the midair emergency that left 13 seriously injured indicated the October 7 malfunction on the Airbus A330-300 was caused by a fault in a computer unit that uses sensors to detect the angle of the plane.
While that theory is considered the most likely, investigators are looking into whether the fault could lie with electromagnetic interference (EMI) from a low-frequency naval submarine communications transmitter on the Australian coast at Exmouth, near to where the plane made its emergency landing.
The Naval Communications Station, Harold E. Holt, was built by the US Navy in the 1960s. It provides very low frequency radio transmissions to the US and Australian navies across the western Pacific and eastern Indian oceans.
Another possible source of the EMI is portable electronic device Australian Transport Safety Bureau director Kerryn Macaulay said. She said even those considered safe to operate during are being investigated.
"Possible external sources of EMI are being explored and assessed," she said.
But even as investigators consider that theory, the plane's three computer units, called air data inertial reference units, or ADIRUs, will be examined next week at manufacturer Northrop Grumman Corp.'s factory, the bureau said.
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