Qantas flight forced to turn around after sparks fly from engine

A plane heading to Melbourne from the US was forced to turn back after passengers saw sparks from their window.

The pilots shut down the faulty engine and informed passengers that the aircraft couldn’t continue flying to its destination.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will decide tomorrow on whether to investigate the engine failure of a Qantas Airbus A380 which was forced to turn back to Los Angeles after passengers saw sparks streaming past their window.

Several passengers on board QF94 heading to Melbourne from the US west coast on Saturday night have described hearing a “small explosion” from one of the airliner’s four engines about two hours into the flight.

The pilots shut down the faulty engine and informed the 480 passengers that the Airbus couldn’t continue flying to its destination. The aircraft returned to Los Angeles airport and landed without incident at 3am.

In a statement released today, Qantas denied witness accounts of flames shooting out of the engine.

“Reports that the engine was ‘on fire’ aren’t correct; passengers may have seen some sparks before it was safely shut down by the flight crew,” the airline’s statement said.

“A replacement flight departed LA at about 2.30pm on Saturday, and is due to land in Melbourne on Sunday night ... We appreciate our customers’ patience and understanding.”

A passenger’s picture of the redirected flight path displayed on an aircraft screen.

ATSB spokesman Robert Smith told The Australian that Qantas would most likely brief the bureau tomorrow.

“We were notified that there was abnormal engine indications two hours into the flight and as a result the crew shut down the engine and returned to LA,” he said.

“We haven’t got a formal report from Qantas yet but are expecting that in the next day or so. We will pick that up tomorrow morning and decide if we will ­investigate.”

Qantas said its engineers were inspecting the plane.

‘How did this happen, Qantas?’

Passenger Rod Olsen said he witnessed a “small explosion” in one engine and wrote a Facebook message to Qantas criticising the company’s handling of the ­situation.

“A mid air scare last night 90mins into our flight from LAX to MEL. A small explosion in one of the engines followed by flames and sparks streaming out the window. Pretty terrifying being a passenger and seeing that,” the posting said. “We had to sleep on the floor of LAX as though we were homeless due to no accommodation. When asked by the ground staff assisting us if we could have access to Qantas lounge to at least shower we were told it was only available for people with Qantas club access ... How did this happen Qantas?”

#Qantas this is not what I signed up for!Engine shut down mid flight, return back to LAX and had to sleep on floor like I was homeless 👎🏻 pic.twitter.com/EW5C2AWRUQ

— Rod Olsen (@rodolsen) May 20, 2017

Videos posted to Twitter showed passengers sleeping on the floor of the airport.

Others, however, took to social media to praise flight and ground staff.

Passenger Maureen Eldridge said communication and service were excellent. “While the engine issues are an inconvenience, the situation was handled in a calm & professional manner,” she wrote on Facebook.

One of the most recent major incidents involving a Qantas A380 engine failure was in November 2010, when a flight leaving Singapore experienced uncontained engine failure over Indonesia’s Batam island.

An ATSB investigation found a fatigue crack in an oil feed pipe caused debris from the engine to hit the aircraft’s left wing and fuselage and fall to the island below. The flight landed safely.