Australia's Qantas: world's safest airline?

Singapore: Australia's Qantas has a reputation as the world's safest airline, never having suffered a fatal jetliner crash and its last deadly accident dating back to 1951.

- Then, a small propeller-driven plane ditched into seas off Papua New Guinea, killing all seven people on board.
 
- Qantas has been plagued by a series of recent safety incidents including an engine failure in August which blasted a large hole in a Sydney-bound Qantas Boeing 747-400, forcing it to return to San Francisco.

- In March an Airbus A380 superjumbo damaged its tyres on landing in Sydney from Singapore, showering sparks and scaring passengers.
 
- In July 2008 an exploding oxygen bottle tore a car-sized hole in the fuselage of a Boeing 747-400, forcing an emergency landing in Manila.
 
- Qantas is also facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit involving dozens of passengers and crew over an Airbus A330-300's terrifying mid-air plunge in 2008 which left scores of people injured.

- At 1 September 2010, the Qantas Group operated a fleet of 252 aircraft, made up of Boeing 747s, 767s, 737s and 717s, Airbus A380s, A330s and A320s, Bombardier Dash 8s and Bombardier Q400s.
 
- It flies to 182 destinations in 44 countries, operating 5,600 flights a week across all its brands domestically and more than 970 international flights. It moved 41.4 million passengers in the year ended June 2010.
 
- Australian aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas said Qantas had an enviable safety record.

"Qantas has the lowest in-flight shut-down rate of any airline in the world. They've got the lowest turn-back rate, they've the lowest aborted take off rate," Thomas said.

"When you get an incident like this, sure they don't like it... it's bad from the publicity point of view but the reality is it's a one-in-a-billion (incident). On a brand new aircraft like this, it's extraordinary."
 
- But an airline engineers' union said there had been a "growing number of serious incidents" in recent years and suggested there was a link with Qantas sending all its major maintenance work offshore.