A passenger plane en route from London to Melbourne has made an emergency landing in the Philippines after suffering cabin pressure problems.

Qantas Airways said its Boeing 747-400, with 346 passengers and 19 crew, diverted to Manila shortly after leaving Hong Kong and landed safely.

Airport Authority spokesman Octavio Lina said there was a "big hole in the right side near the wing".

Full story at the BBC.

A close up from aftenposten.no

Another image on that link confirms the reg as VH-OJK

Video footage from within the aircraft from an Aussie website!

Interesting story here

News Limited reports today that engineers discovered a large amount of corrosion in the Qantas jumbo during a major refurbishment earlier this year.

The 17-year-old Boeing 747-400, registration VH-OJK, received a new interior at Victoria's Avalon Airport in March.

Aviation sources said aircraft engineers had noted a "lot" of corrosion during the refit, the report said.

QF Flight 30 from London to Melbourne had left Hong Kong airport yesterday after a stopover at 9am local time, (11am AEST), when an explosion ripped through the plane's underside.

Some of the 346 passengers aboard told of how debris flew through the cabin and oxygen masks dropped down.

The crew brought the plane down to 10,000 feet and requested an emergency landing in Manila, where emergency crews were on hand when it touched down safely.

Qantas said it had arranged for a replacement plane to fly to Manila to collect the passengers return them immediately to Melbourne.

The replacement Boeing 747 was expected to leave the Philippines capital shortly after 11pm local time last night (0100 AEST today), to arrive in Melbourne this morning (AEST).

Source http://www.news.com.au

ATSB press release with some parts in bold text by me-

Qantas Boeing 747-400 depressurisation and diversion to Manila on 25 July 2008

28 July 2008

The ATSB was advised on Friday 25 July of a serious occurrence involving a Qantas aircraft.

The aircraft, a Boeing 747-400 was operating a scheduled passenger service from Hong Kong to Melbourne Australia. At approximately 29,000 feet, the crew were forced to conduct an emergency descent after a section of the fuselage separated and resulted in a rapid decompression of the cabin. The crew descended the aircraft to 10,000 feet in accordance with established procedures and diverted the aircraft to Manila where a safe landing was carried out. The aircraft taxied to the terminal unassisted, where the passengers and crew disembarked. There were no reported injuries.

The ATSB is leading this safety investigation with the assistance of a number of other organisations and agencies, including the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration of the USA, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of Australia and Qantas and Boeing.

The ongoing investigation has confirmed that there is one unaccounted for oxygen cylinder from the bank of cylinders that are located in the area of the breech. There are 13 oxygen cylinders in the bank that are responsible for supplying oxygen to the passenger masks and cabin crew.

Also recovered are a number of parts of components including part of a valve in the vicinity of the breech. However, it is yet to be determined whether these components are part of the aircraft system.

A number of passengers have reported that some of the oxygen masks appeared not to function correctly when they deployed from the overhead modules. The ATSB intends to examine the oxygen system including the oxygen masks.

 More from the ATSB -

The ATSB can confirm that it appears that part of an oxygen cylinder and valve entered the passenger cabin and impacted the number 2 right door frame handle, thereby moving the handle part way towards the open position. However, the door handle mechanism has been sheared as it is designed to do if an attempt is made to open the door in flight, so the position of the door handle is not representative of the position of the door lock mechanism or the security of the door. The investigation team have confirmed that the door latches were still engaged. Additionally the door is of the plug-type that first needs to be pulled into the cabin, rotated 90 degrees then pushed out to open. So there was never any danger of the door opening.

From the ATSB preliminary report -

After clearing the baggage and cargo from the forward aircraft hold, it was evident that one passenger oxygen cylinder (number-4 from a bank of seven cylinders along the right side of the cargo hold) had sustained a sudden failure and forceful discharge of its pressurised contents into the aircraft hold, rupturing the fuselage in the vicinity of the wing-fuselage leading edge fairing. The cylinder had been propelled upward by the force of the discharge, puncturing the cabin floor and entering the cabin adjacent to the second main cabin door. The cylinder had subsequently impacted the door frame, door handle and overhead panelling, before falling to the cabin floor and exiting the aircraft through the ruptured fuselage.

If you download the PDF it also contains several images taken from inside the hold that I've not seen before.