Qantas 747 lands in Singapore after engine problem

Qantas 747 lands in Singapore after engine problem

Passengers claim they heard a loud bang and were asked to adopt the brace position.

November 6, 2010 1:27 by Eva Fernandes

Reuters

A Qantas aircraft carrying more than 400 passengers made an emergency landing in Singapore on Friday after experiencing engine problems, the second such incident involving the Australian airline two days.

The Sydney-bound Boeing 747-400 with 412 passengers on board had been in the air for about 20 minutes when it sought “immediate clearance” to return to Singapore, a Qantas spokeswoman said.

The airline said in a statement: “(Flight) QF6 from Singapore to Sydney experienced an issue with one of its engines …. and the aircraft landed safely a short time later without incident.” It said the decision was precautionary.

The plane had arrived in the city-state from Frankfurt earlier in the day.

Passengers on board the plane indicated the problem was more serious, however.

“Around 20 minutes into the flight we heard a loud bang and the pilot asked the passenger to put our heads into brace position,” Ranjan Sivagnanasundaram, an Australian in his 50s, told Reuters.

“It was a very big shock to us, especially after what happened yesterday.”

A day earlier, a Qantas Airbus A380 returned to make an emergency landing in Singapore after an explosion in an engine shortly after take-off.

The engine failure on Thursday, which scattered debris on an Indonesian island, was the most serious incident affecting the world’s largest passenger plane, which has been in service since 2007.

Qantas grounded its fleet and other airlines carried out checks on their own A380s.

Qantas said a faulty part or design fault might have caused the damage to the A380′s engine, which was made by Rolls-Royce. The manufacturer of the Qantas 747′s engine was not immediately known.

Passengers who spoke to Reuters said they saw flames coming from one of the 747′s engines, while Singapore’s Channel NewsAsia quoted other passengers as saying they smelt burning fuel and saw smoke.

Some of those on board the Boeing had been on the A380 that made an emergency landing the day before.

By Harry Suhartono and Vivek Prakash

Reporting by Kevin Lim, Harry Suhartono and Vivek Prakash; Editing by Andrew Dobbie