Qantas engineers and aviation security inspectors will look at a airplane’s jet engine to find out why it failed on an Auckland-Sydney flight, prompting a mayday name and emergency touchdown.
The pilot of Qantas Flight 144, a Boeing 737 plane, shut down the engine and made the mayday name over the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday afternoon earlier than touchdown safely at Sydney airport at about 3.30pm.
Passengers reported feeling bumps or a little bit of turbulence however mentioned they didn’t know a mayday had been issued till they landed. Nobody was damage and passengers praised the pilot for touchdown the airplane safely on one engine.
Qantas mentioned that whereas “inflight engine shutdowns” are uncommon and regarding for passengers, pilots are educated “to handle them safely and plane are designed to fly for an prolonged interval on one engine”.
It mentioned all 145 passengers disembarked the plane usually.
Aviation skilled Neil Hansford advised the ABC that “Qantas has by no means had a passenger misplaced on a jet plane in its historical past”.
He mentioned Qantas engineers can be instantly investigating what might have prompted the engine failure and the Australian Transport Security Bureau can be initiating an inquiry into the incident.
Pictures taken on the airport present one of many engines seems to have a big panel lacking from the engine cowl.
‘This can be a bit bizarre’
Passengers advised reporters an engine failed however nobody onboard appeared panicked in the course of the flight.
“I type of heard the little bang after which a little bit of turbulence, and we simply thought okay, this can be a bit bizarre,” passenger Sandika McAuley mentioned.
“However we did not actually know something till we landed, then we obtained advised that there was a mayday name and the engine failed.”
Engine failures ‘uncommon’
Professor Doug Drury, head of aviation at Central Queensland College, advised The New Each day engine failures are usually brought on by upkeep points, however harassed that it wasn’t potential to substantiate if that was what had occurred on this occasion with out extra data.
“Engine failures in flight for big business airliners are fairly uncommon nowadays.
“It may have been a upkeep subject of some type, as a result of the pilots are definitely not going to muck round on the flight deck and inadvertently flip an engine off. So it might have needed to have been a mechanical failure of some type,” Professor Drury mentioned.
“Or it may have been one thing taking place to the engine that prompted it [the pilots] to close it down … oil strain beginning to go sky excessive, or exhaust gasoline temperatures exceeding most limits … then the pilots would have shut an engine down.”
He mentioned the Qantas flight would have had to take a look at how a lot gas they’d on board earlier than making the decision to land.
“There’s a most weight a airplane might be carrying when it lands, it is usually so much lower than the utmost weight that we will take off with.
“Whereas inflight engine shutdowns are uncommon, and would naturally be regarding for passengers,” Qantas mentioned, “our pilots are educated to handle them safely and plane are designed to fly for an prolonged interval on one engine.”
‘Extremely skilled crew’
Federal Transport Minister Catherine King praised the airline’s security report after a scare that had 100,000 folks monitoring the flight on-line.
“Nicely performed to the extremely skilled crew for getting the airplane safely residence,” Ms King tweeted.
“Australia’s aviation business is among the many most secure on the earth due to the devoted workers engaged on planes and behind the scenes”.
The Australian and Worldwide Pilots Affiliation (IAPA) mentioned in an announcement that such mid-air incidents had been extraordinarily uncommon and it was too early to invest on the engine failure.
“We’re happy the expertly educated {and professional} Qantas pilots took all the best steps to take care of the incident and had been in a position to safely land again in Sydney.
