Qantas 747 turns back to Singapore after 'flames from engine'
Qantas passengers on board a flight that turned back shortly after leaving Singapore have described seeing "tongues of fire" coming from one of the 747 jumbo jet's engines.
Flight QF10 was on its way to Melbourne carrying 354 passengers when the incident occurred.
Dylan Brady, 38, was returning to Melbourne after visiting Singapore on business when the plane "convulsed and lost power".
"[My business partner and I] both thought something had fallen off the bottom, or the landing gear had come undone," he said.
"Then we saw this orange light and we both looked out the window to see fire coming out of the back of the jet. It was pretty scary."
Mr Brady said the flames lasted about 10 seconds, while the whole incident was over in about 25 seconds. He said the passengers knew something had happened but stayed calm, and the captain quickly informed them he had shut the engine down.
"When he shut the engine off, obviously everything was OK, the plane slowed down a little bit and then he sort of pulled gently and slowly to the left to get out of the flight path because the plane behind us was only a minute and half behind and still going full speed," he said.
On its return to Singapore, Mr Brady said the plane was directed to its own runway which was lined with fire engines and emergency crews.
"To Qantas's credit, by the time the plane got back to the ground they had hotels for everybody. It was pretty well organised. There were some conniptions when the business class passengers got their luggage and economy didn't ... I didn't notice anyone who was ridiculously disgruntled."
Another passenger, Steve Tanoto, described the shock "tongues of fire on the rightmost engine ... in the middle of the night".
The airline this morning confirmed a "mechanical fault" forced the jet back to Singapore soon after it took off last night.
A passenger who contacted Traveller reported flames coming from an engine 25 minutes after the jet took off from Singapore's Changi Airport at 8.53pm, local time (11.53pm Melbourne time).
Source: Qantas 747 turns back to Singapore after 'flames from engine'
Flight QF10 was on its way to Melbourne carrying 354 passengers when the incident occurred.
Dylan Brady, 38, was returning to Melbourne after visiting Singapore on business when the plane "convulsed and lost power".
"[My business partner and I] both thought something had fallen off the bottom, or the landing gear had come undone," he said.
"Then we saw this orange light and we both looked out the window to see fire coming out of the back of the jet. It was pretty scary."
Mr Brady said the flames lasted about 10 seconds, while the whole incident was over in about 25 seconds. He said the passengers knew something had happened but stayed calm, and the captain quickly informed them he had shut the engine down.
"When he shut the engine off, obviously everything was OK, the plane slowed down a little bit and then he sort of pulled gently and slowly to the left to get out of the flight path because the plane behind us was only a minute and half behind and still going full speed," he said.
On its return to Singapore, Mr Brady said the plane was directed to its own runway which was lined with fire engines and emergency crews.
"To Qantas's credit, by the time the plane got back to the ground they had hotels for everybody. It was pretty well organised. There were some conniptions when the business class passengers got their luggage and economy didn't ... I didn't notice anyone who was ridiculously disgruntled."
Another passenger, Steve Tanoto, described the shock "tongues of fire on the rightmost engine ... in the middle of the night".
The airline this morning confirmed a "mechanical fault" forced the jet back to Singapore soon after it took off last night.
A passenger who contacted Traveller reported flames coming from an engine 25 minutes after the jet took off from Singapore's Changi Airport at 8.53pm, local time (11.53pm Melbourne time).
Source: Qantas 747 turns back to Singapore after 'flames from engine'
