Qantas 747 depressurisation update

You may remember back in July that a Qantas 747 en-route from Hong Kong to Melbourne experienced a sudden depressurisation that ripped a hole in the fuselage just forward of the wing. You may also remember I decried the use of sensationalistic journalism in my post about this incident.

The Air Transport Safety Board preliminary report has been produced for this incident

Apparently one of the row of oxygen containers in the hold spontaneously exploded. The explosion had 2 effects:

1) It blew the hole in the fuselage causing a sudden depressurisation
2) It forced the oxygen container up through the floor of the cabin where it damaged an exit door and an overhead bin before falling back through the hole in the cabin floor and being sucked out of the aircraft through the hole in the fuselage.

So far there is no explanation of why the oxygen tank exploded.

As per the report there was no 'plummeting', just a normal controlled descent to a more suitable altitude. Nobody was hurt in the incident and procedure was followed correctly. In fact, according to industry experts "It may seem like the aircraft is going through a radical maneuver, and
it is radical compared to normal flying, but this is standard protocol."

Nothing to worry about. Move along, please......