An engine failure forced pilots on a Quantas flight to make an emergency landing shortly after it took from an airport in Sydney, Australia.
Passengers heard a loud bang shortly after flight 520 from Sydney to Brisbane left the runway on Friday afternoon, the airline said in a statement, adding that it was not an explosion.
Engineers concluded after a preliminary inspection and confirmed the Boeing 737 jet suffered a contained engine failure, the statement added.
“A really jolting shudder went through the plane,” passenger Mark Willacy, a journalist with the Australian broadcaster ABC News, told his network, adding that he heard the loud bang just after the jet pulled up from Sydney Airport.
“We knew immediately something was wrong,” he added. “That big bang as the wheels were leaving the ground and the shudder — that was like nothing I’ve ever felt.”
The twin-jet then “really labored” to gain altitude, he said, adding that the “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.
The plane “was banking a lot” as it turned to prepare for its eventual descent back into Sydney, Willacy said. “It didn’t feel as stable as it would normally feel when you when you’re doing those turns,” he added.
In a separate statement Sydney Airport said the “departure of aircraft coincided with a grass fire along the eastern side of the airport’s parallel runway.”
Firefighters brought this under control, the statement said, 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 the flight 520’s descent, but the airport said by 5 p.m. local time (1 a.m. ET Friday) it had returned to full operation.
