World Business

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MANILA, Philippines — The 346 passengers were cruising at 29,000 feet Friday while an explosive bang shook the Qantas jumbo jet. The plane descended rapidly. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling as debris flew through the cabin from a hole that had suddenly appeared in the floor.

It wasn’t until they were in safety on the ground after an emergency landing that they realized in what plight propitious they had been: A hole the size of a small car had been ripped into the Boeing 747-400’s metal skin and penetrated the fuselage.

The eerie scene on board Flight QF 30, captured on a passenger’s cellphone video camera, showed a tense quiet punctuated only by a baby’s cries as passengers sat from one side oxygen masks on their faces. The jerky footage showed a woman holding tightly to the station in front of her as rapidly approaching disembark appeared through a window.

Loud plaudit and relieved laughter went up as the plane touched down.

There were no injuries — just a small in number cases of nausea, airline officials before-mentioned.

An official of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration before-mentioned initial reports indicated no tie to terrorism.

The passengers and gang arrived in Melbourne, Australia, on a different plane this morning and were greeted by hundreds of relieved subdivision of an order members.

Investigators appeared to be focusing on a structural problem.

“From the pictures that we’ve seen out of Manila during the course of the appointed time, it would present the appearance that one of the panels to the outer skin of the aircraft has literally come away from the rest of the fuselage,” Chris Yates, an aviation expert at Jane’s Aviation, told The Associated Press.

The hole appeared to encompass a part of the flat called a fairing, which is meant to make easy out the surface of the fuselage and reduce drag.

The plane had recently undergone a major overhaul, in which engineers discovered a great share of corrosion inside the cargo hold, The Daily Telegraph of Australia reported in its editions today.

Although metal fatigue has been blamed for similar emergencies in the past, fairings, which are installed on various parts of each aircraft, answer not normally have that problem, said Robert W. Mann Jr., any industry consultant based in Port Washington, N.Y.