Wasps ground Qantas flights
A wasp plague has prevented three Qantas flights from taking off properly at the airport of Brisbane in Australia. This has become clear from a security report. The insects had made nests in parts of the Airbus A330-fleet of Qantas, as a result of which they disturbed the flight equipment.
In one of the cases a plane had to make a stop while already taking off. This caused the brakes to overheat the tires, which in turn caused six out of eight tires to blow up. The airplane remained stranded on the tarmac. The pilot was forced to start the braking procedure while already traveling at a speed of 226 kph. In turn the brakes reached a temperature of 685 degrees. Since the incidents Qantas implemented a weekly wasp nest checkup on their fleet.
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