Sydney
Reuters
—
A Qantas Airways airplane certain for Brisbane suffered an engine failure after takeoff on Friday and circled for a brief time frame earlier than returning safely to Sydney Airport, the Australian airline mentioned.
Passengers heard a loud bang from one of many plane’s two engines, Australian media reported.
A journalist with nationwide broadcaster ABC was on the flight and mentioned there was a “sharp shudder” on the airplane after the loud noise, his information outlet reported.
“It was obvious one thing had occurred with one of many engines, then the airplane appeared to labor to get off the bottom or get any altitude,” ABC journalist Mark Willacy mentioned.
Qantas didn’t disclose the variety of passengers or crew aboard the narrow-body airplane, which its web site states presents 12 enterprise and 162 financial system seats.
The airline mentioned its engineers had carried out a preliminary inspection of the engine and confirmed it was a contained engine failure, that means the inner engine components stayed throughout the protecting housing designed to maintain them safely enclosed.
Uncontained engine failures, the place engine fragments fly out of this housing, can lead to critical harm to the principle physique of an plane.
Qantas flight QF520 took off from Sydney at 12:35 p.m. (8.35 p.m. Thursday ET), circled just a few occasions and diverted to land at Sydney, monitoring knowledge from Flightradar24 confirmed.
The plane’s departure coincided with a grass fireplace breaking out alongside Sydney Airport’s parallel runway, which was introduced below management by groups from the aviation firefighting rescue service, the airport mentioned in an announcement.
“It’s not clear at this stage if the 2 incidents are linked and investigations are persevering with,” the airport added. Qantas mentioned the airplane landed safely after acceptable procedures have been carried out and added it might be investigating the reason for the engine concern.
The airplane is a 19-year-old Boeing 737-800, in line with Flightradar24.
That mannequin is powered by engines from CFM Worldwide, a three way partnership between GE Aerospace and France’s Safran.