Sydney - 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.-------------------------------
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