It is often claimed that Qantas has never had an aircraft crash. While it is true that the company has neither lost a jet airliner nor had any jet fatalities, it had eight fatal accidents and an aircraft shot down between 1927 and 1945, with the loss of 63 people. Half of these accidents and the shoot-down occurred during World War II, when the Qantas aircraft were operating on behalf of Allied military forces. Post-war, it lost another four aircraft (one was owned by BOAC and operated by Qantas in a pooling arrangement) with a total of 21 people killed. The last fatal accidents suffered by Qantas were in 1951, with three fatal crashes in five months. Qantas' safety record allows the airline to be officially known as the world's safest airline for seven years in a row from 2012 until 2019 and again in 2021 and 2023.
Since the end of World War II, the following accidents and incidents have occurred:
On 23 March 1946, an Avro Lancastrian registered G-AGLX disappeared while flying over the Indian Ocean. The BOAC-owned aircraft was being operated by Qantas on the Karachi—Sydney part of the two airlines' joint service from London to Sydney. It disappeared with seven passengers and crew on board between Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, approximately three hours before it was due to arrive at the Cocos islands.
On 7 April 1949, an Avro Lancastrian registered VH-EAS swung on landing at Dubbo, New South Wales during a training flight, causing the gear to collapse. The aircraft was destroyed by fire, but the crew evacuated safely.
On 16 July 1951, a de Havilland Australia DHA-3 Drover registered VH-EBQ crashed off the coast of New Guinea (in the Huon Gulf near the mouth of the Markham River) after the centre engine's propeller failed. The pilot and the six passengers on board were killed.
On 21 September 1951, a de Havilland DH.84 Dragon registered VH-AXL, crashed in mountainous country southeast of Arona in the central highlands of New Guinea, no passengers were on board, the pilot was killed.
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On 13 December 1951, a de Havilland DH.84 Dragon registered VH-URV crashed in mountainous country near Mount Hagen, central highlands of New Guinea. The pilot and the two passengers were killed. This is the last fatal accident suffered by Qantas.
On 24 August 1960, a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation registered VH-EAC crashed on take-off at Mauritius en route to the Cocos Islands, Australia. The take-off was aborted following an engine failure, the aircraft ran off the runway, and was destroyed by fire. There were no fatalities.
On 1 June 1989, Qantas Flight 5, a Boeing 747-200 operating from Sydney to Singapore was cruising at 32,000 ft about 900 km south-east of Derby when it sharply climbed 1500 ft. The pilots disengaged the auto-pilot and the aircraft sharply descended 1500 ft. Unrestrained passengers hit the cabin's internal ceiling panels, leaving holes. The aircraft diverted to Darwin, where 47 passengers were taken to hospital with cuts, bruises, chest pains, concussion, fractured ribs and shock. Three passengers suffered spinal injuries.
On 23 September 1999, Qantas Flight 1, a Boeing 747-400 registered VH-OJH, overran the runway while landing at Bangkok, Thailand, during a heavy thunderstorm. The aircraft came to a stop on a golf course, but without fatalities. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau criticised numerous inadequacies in Qantas' operational and training processes.
On 25 July 2008, Qantas Flight 30, a Boeing 747-400 registered VH-OJK, suffered a ruptured fuselage and decompression as a result of an oxygen tank explosion over the South China Sea. En route from Hong Kong International Airport to Melbourne Airport, the aircraft made an emergency landing in the Philippines with no injuries.
On 7 October 2008, an Airbus A330-300 registered VH-QPA, travelling from Singapore Changi Airport to Perth, Western Australia as Qantas Flight 72, suffered a rapid loss of altitude in two sudden uncommanded pitch down manoeuvres causing serious injuries while 80 nautical miles (150 km; 92 mi) from Learmonth. The aircraft safely landed in Learmonth, with 14 people requiring transportation by air ambulance to Perth. Another 30 people also required hospital treatment, while an additional 30 people had injuries not requiring hospital treatment. Initial investigations identified an inertial reference system fault in the Number-1 Air Data Inertial Reference Unit as the likely origin of the event. On receiving false indication of a very high angle of attack, the flight control systems commanded a pitch down movement, reaching a maximum of 8.5 degrees pitch down. The incident featured in a 7 News documentary.
On 4 November 2010, Qantas Flight 32, an Airbus A380 registered VH-OQA, fitted with four Rolls-Royce Trent 972 engines, suffered an uncontained turbine disc failure of its left inboard engine shortly after taking off from Singapore Changi Airport en route to Sydney. The aircraft returned to Singapore and landed safely. None of the 440 passengers or 29 crew on board were injured.
On 8 November 2024, Qantas Flight 520, a Boeing 737-800 registered VH-VYH, suffered a contained failure of its right engine at decision speed during take-off from Sydney for Brisbane. The crew continued the take-off and returned for a single-engine landing about 30 minutes later; none of the 181 occupants was injured. The ATSB found that a fatigue crack in a high-pressure turbine blade caused the failure and classified the occurrence as a serious incident.
Extortion attempts
On 26 May 1971, Qantas received a call from a "Mr. Brown" claiming that there was a bomb planted on a Hong Kong-bound jet and demanding $500,000 in unmarked $20 notes. The caller and threat were taken seriously when he directed police to an airport locker where a functional bomb was found. Arrangements were made to pick up the money in front of the head office of the airline in the heart of the Sydney business district. Qantas paid the money and it was collected, after which Mr. Brown called again, advising the "bomb on the plane" story was a hoax. The initial pursuit of the perpetrator was bungled by the New South Wales Police Force which, despite having been advised of the matter from the time of the first call, failed to establish adequate surveillance of the pick-up of the money. Directed not to use their radios (for fear of being "overheard"), the police were unable to communicate adequately.
Tipped off by a still-unidentified informer, the police arrested an Englishman, Peter Macari, finding more than $138,000 hidden in an Annandale property. Convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison, Macari served nine years before being deported to Britain. More than $224,000 remains unaccounted for. The 1986 telemovie Call Me Mr. Brown, directed by Scott Hicks and produced by Terry Jennings, relates to this incident. On 4 July 1997 a copycat extortion attempt was thwarted by police and Qantas security staff.
Controversies
Sex discrimination controversy
In November 2005, it was revealed that Qantas had a policy of not seating adult male passengers next to unaccompanied children. This led to accusations of discrimination. The policy came to light following an incident in 2004 when Mark Wolsay, who was seated next to a young boy on a Qantas flight in New Zealand, was asked to change seats with a female passenger. A steward informed him that "it was the airline's policy that only women were allowed to sit next to unaccompanied children". Cameron Murphy of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties president criticised the policy and stated that "there was no basis for the ban". He said it was wrong to assume that all adult males posed a danger to children. The policy has also been criticised for failing to take female abusers into consideration.
In 2010, when British Airways was successfully sued to change its child seating policy, Qantas argued again that banning men from sitting next to unaccompanied children "reflected parents' concerns". In August 2012, the controversy resurfaced when a male passenger had to swap seats with a female passenger after the crew noticed he was sitting next to an unrelated girl travelling alone. The man felt discriminated against and humiliated before the other passengers as a possible paedophile. A Qantas spokesman defended the policy as consistent with that of other airlines in Australia and around the globe.
Price fixing
In November 2007, Qantas pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a US$61 million fine in the United States for its role in a conspiracy to fix rates for international air cargo shipments between January 2000 and February 2006. Former senior Qantas executive Bruce McCaffrey was sentenced to 6 months in jail and a $US20,000 fine over his role in the price-fixing. In February 2011, Qantas reached a settlement over a class action lawsuit filed in the United States, agreeing to pay US$26.5 million. In August 2014, Deutsche Bahn filed a lawsuit against Qantas and seven other airlines for price-fixing in a New York court in a US$2.5 billion lawsuit, however, it dropped the lawsuit without explanation in March 2015.
In October 2008, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) launched proceedings in federal court over alleged price fixing relating to fuel surcharges applied to international carriage of air cargo between 2002 and 2006. In December 2008, the court ordered Qantas pay A$20 million in penalties for breaching provisions of the Trade Practices Act 1974 and to pay $200,000 towards the ACCC.
In July 2009, the Canadian Competition Bureau fined Qantas CAD$155,000 after it admitted that its freight division fixed surcharges on cargo exported on certain routes from Canada between May 2002 and February 2006.
In June 2010, the South Korean Fair Trade Commission fined Qantas ₩131 million alongside 18 other airlines for fixing cargo prices between 1999 and 2007.
In November 2010, Qantas was fined €8.9 million by the European Commissioner for Competition along with ten other airlines for fixing air cargo prices.
In April 2011, Qantas was fined NZ$6.5 million in April 2011 when it pleaded guilty in the New Zealand High Court to the cartel operation.
Industrial disputes and 2011 grounding of fleet
In response to ongoing industrial unrest over failed negotiations involving three unions (the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA), the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) and the Transport Workers Union of Australia (TWU)), the company grounded its entire domestic and international fleet from 5 pm AEDT on 29 October 2011, and employees involved would be locked out from 8 p.m. AEDT on 31 October 2011. However, in the early hours of 31 October, Fair Work Australia ordered that all industrial action taken by Qantas and the involved trade unions be terminated immediately. The order was requested by the federal government amid fears that an extended period of grounding would do significant damage to the national economy, especially the tourism and mining sectors. It was reported that the grounding would have had a daily financial impact of A$20 million and affected an estimated 68,000 customers worldwide.
In 2021, the Transport Workers Union took Qantas to court, over the dismissal of 1,685 baggage handlers and cleaners during the COVID-19 pandemic, whose roles were later outsourced. The TWU argued that the airline's actions contravened the Fair Work Act while Qantas claimed it had to make the cuts to ensure the company's survival during the pandemic. In July 2021, the Federal Court of Australia ruled in favour of the TWU. Qantas lost an appeal in May 2022. The case moved to the High Court of Australia in May 2023, and in September 2023, the High Court ruled against Qantas, upholding the original Federal Court decision and leaving the airline liable for compensation. After the verdict, Qantas issued an apology to the sacked workers.
In December 2024, Qantas announced it would pay A$120 million in compensation to former ground handlers who were sacked. In August 2025, Qantas was ordered to pay an additional A$90 million penalty, of which A$50 million would be paid to the Transport Workers Union.
Asylum seeker deportations
Qantas has been subject to protests in relation to the deportation of asylum seekers, which led to disruptions of flights. In February 2015, activists prevented the transfer of a Tamil man from Melbourne to Darwin (from where he was to be deported to Colombo) by refusing to take their seats on a Qantas flight. It was reported that Qantas banned the student from taking Qantas flights in the future. A nameless head of security from Qantas sent a letter to the Melbourne student's email account saying her "actions are unacceptable and will not be tolerated by the Qantas Group or the Jetstar Group".
In March 2015, another Tamil man was to be sent from Melbourne to Darwin to later be deported. A protest by the man led to him not being put on the aircraft. A spokesman for Qantas said flight QF838 was delayed almost two hours. A spokesperson from Qantas stated that "[s]afety and security is the number-one priority for all airlines and an aircraft is not the right place for people to conduct protests."
In March 2017, campaigners asked Qantas to rule out deporting Iraqi man Saeed in 2017.
In March 2018, campaigners asked Qantas not to participate in the high-profile deportation case of the Nadesalingam family. In response a Qantas spokesperson stated: "We appreciate that this is a sensitive issue. The government and courts are best placed to make decisions on complex immigration matters, not airlines".
Disputes with airports
In September 2010, Qantas breached Wellington Airport's late night curfew when a flight from Sydney had arrived at 1:47am NZDT, 17 minutes past a 30-minute grace period for disrupted flights. In August 2011, it paid a $12,000 fine for the breach.
The airline has been in a number of disputes with the operators of Perth Airport. In 2018, the airport sued Qantas in the Supreme Court of Western Australia for allegedly underpaying their aeronautical service fees by A$11.3 million. The suit was resolved in 2022 with Qantas forced to pay the airport the owed amount plus an additional A$9 million. In 2020, Perth Airport had also threatened to cancel several of the airline's leases over unpaid rent between February and May 2020; part of the rental dispute concerned Qantas alleging that Perth Airport had undervalued a Qantas-owned terminal that was sold back to the airport. Qantas had also drawn criticism from both Perth Airport and the Government of Western Australia for delaying an agreed move from their existing isolated terminals to a proposed new terminal in the airport's central precinct; in May 2024, it was confirmed that the airline had come to an agreement to complete the move by 2031, six years after the original agreed timeframe of 2025.
Flight credit policy
In April 2022, consumer advocacy group Choice lodged a complaint with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) concerning the airline's flight credit policy for cancelled flights during the COVID-19 pandemic, which they alleged was "unfair" and saw customers issued with flight vouchers with short expiration dates that became unusable due to ongoing travel restrictions. During an August 2023 Australian Senate committee hearing concerning the rising cost of living, CEO Alan Joyce was accused of "misleading the Australian public" with the airline's flight credits scheme, among other issues with the carrier. On 31 August 2023, Qantas bowed to public pressure and announced the removal of expiry dates for flight credits issued up to 30 September 2021 as well as giving customers the option of a refund instead, with Joyce admitting in a statement that the airline's implementation of the scheme led to "people [losing] faith in the process".
Although more than A$1 billion in credit had been claimed by Qantas and Jetstar customers by August 2023, Echo Law filed a class action lawsuit for customers still seeking refunds and compensation for flights cancelled during the pandemic. In March 2026, Qantas agreed to settle the class action lawsuit without admitting wrongdoing for $105 million, with Qantas distributing $68 million to customers who received a travel credit rather than a refund for flights cancelled during the pandemic.
Cancelled flights
In August 2023, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission commenced court action against Qantas for offering and selling tickets on 82,000 flights due to take off between May 2022 and May 2024 that it had already decided to cancel. Of those flights, nearly 87,000 customers had already made bookings on cancelled flights and nearly 884,000 customers were not informed that their flight had already been cancelled. These allegations led to the premature departure of Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce in 2023. In May 2024, Qantas settled the lawsuit, agreeing to pay A$100 million in penalties and about A$20 million in compensation to consumers who had purchased flights that Qantas had already cancelled. Consumers were entitled to $225 for domestic and trans-Tasman flights, and $450 for international flights, on top of any other refund or alternative flight already offered.
Other consumer complaints
In September 2022, Four Corners broadcast an episode titled "The Inside Story Of the Chaos at Qantas", detailing passenger service issues and cost cutting by the company.
In March 2023, a report by the ACCC found that the airline was the subject of almost 2,000 complaints over the previous year, with more than 1,300 complaints relating to flight cancellations. The report found that complaints about the airline had risen by 70% from the previous year, and that the ACCC receives more complaints about Qantas than any other business.
Data breaches
In May 2024, a caching issue allowed users to view the personal details of other travellers on its app, which included boarding passes, flight information and frequent flyer information of other passengers.
In July 2025, Qantas confirmed that a cyber incident had occurred at one of its contact centres that resulted in cybercrime collective Scattered Lapsus$Hunters taking 5.7 million customer service records. This included customers' names, email addresses, phone numbers, date of birth and frequent flyer numbers. In October 2025, the data was leaked on the dark web after a ransom deadline had passed. Legal firm Maurice Blackburn filed a class action lawsuit against Qantas following the data breach.
