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Octavio Lina, the airport's deputy manager for operations, said the cabin’s floor gave way, exposing some of the cargo beneath and part of the ceiling collapsed. “There is a big hole on the right side near the wing,” he said, adding it was 2.5 to 3 yards (metres) in diameter.

Qantas is still trying to establish how the large hole came to appear in the fuselage. An emergency room has been set up at the airline's head office at Mascot airport in Sydney, where senior airline executives are being briefed by aircraft engineers.

A Qantas spokeswoman said: "Qantas can confirm that Qantas flight 30 from Hong Kong to Melbourne has been diverted to Manila . The aircraft is on the ground and is currently being inspected”.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has been notified of the incident and its director of air safety is being briefed by Qantas officials.

Qantas 747 incidents:

March 30, 2008:

A cracked window forced a Boeing 747 from Perth to Sydney to make an unscheduled stop in Adelaide after the window ‘popped’. No-one was injured

March 26, 2008:

Qantas Flight 12 from Los Angeles to Sydney had to be stopped mid take-off following a ‘cockpit alert’. Many of the 217 passengers were thrown forward, but no-one was injured.

February 20, 2008:

Three of four electrical systems on a Qantas Boeing 747 approaching Bangkok from London were lost due to water leakage in the forward galley. Cabin crew used blankets to mop up the leak, and the jumbo was forced to land on battery back-up.

October, 2004:

A Qantas jet suffered engine failure shortly after take-off from Sydney airport. Smoke was seen belching from an engine after the 747 levelled out a few minutes into the flight. The pilot was forced to head out to sea to dump fuel before making an emergency landing.

July, 2003

Qantas passengers were injured after hundreds were ordered on to inflatable escape chutes to evacuate a jumbo jet the pilot feared had caught fire as it landed at Sydney airport from Frankfurt and Singapore.

1999

A Qantas plane aquaplaned off the end of the runway at Bangkok airport, crashing through navigational equipment and finishing across a perimeter road. The crash was the airline’s worst in 40 years and caused $A100million damage.

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