A Quantas flight made an emergency landing shortly after it departed an airport in Sydney, Australia. The landing was carried out after a problem was detected in the engine.
It was disclosed that when the aircraft left the airport on Friday afternoon, the passenger heard a long sound after the flight left the runway. The statement confirmed that the aircraft left Sydney, heading to Brisbane, and noted that the fault was not an explosion.
The statement noted that a preliminary investigation by the engineers has confirmed that the Boeing 737 jet suffered a contained engine failure.
One of the passengers, Mark Willacy, a journalist with the Australian broadcaster ABC News, who spoke of the incident, noted that a really jolting shudder went through the plane. The journalist also noted that he heard a loud bang just after the jet pulled up from Sydney Airport.
He noted that when the sound was heard immediately, they knew that something was wrong; he described a big bang as the wheels were leaving the ground and a shudder that was like nothing I’ve ever felt. Speaking further, he noted that the aircraft, which was a twin jet, managed to gain altitude. He added that one engine was really pumping it out hard to get us into the air.
The jet took off shortly after 12:35 p.m. local time (8:35 p.m. ET Thursday), according to data from the flight-tracking platform FlightRadar24. After circling for a short period of time, the aircraft landed safely at Sydney Airport; Qantas’ chief pilot, Capt. Richard Tobiano said in a statement.
In a different statement, Sydney Airport said that aircraft departures coincided with a grass fire along the eastern side of the airport’s parallel runway.
The statement said that firefighters brought this under control, adding that it was “not clear at this stage if the two incidents are linked and investigations are continuing.”
It is unclear if this complicated flight 520’s descent, but the airport said it had returned to full operation by 5 p.m. local time (1 a.m. ET Friday).
