An Airbus owned by a budget Australian airline with over 200 people on board has made an emergency landing on the remote island of Guam after a fire broke out in the cockpit as the plane flew over the western Pacific Ocean.
The A330-200 Jetstar aircraft – the same model as the fatal Air France plane which crashed off the coast of Brazil last week – was carrying 190 passengers, including two Britons, and 13 crew, when the fire broke out mid-air about four hours after it had taken off from Japan.
In the early hours of Thursday, the pilots on Flight JQ20 smelt smoke and saw flames licking the side of the right hand cockpit window and immediately began to douse the flames with a fire extinguisher.
They then placed a mayday call and prepared for an emergency landing in Guam, a small US territory which forms part of the Micronesia island chain in the Pacific region, about 1300 miles east of the Philippines.
The aircraft landed without incident and there were no injuries among the passengers – the majority of whom were Japanese and Australian - or crew.
Advertisement
Bruce Buchanan, the chief executive of Jetstar, a budget arm of the Australian flagship carrier Qantas, praised the efforts of the pilot.
“He has really done a fantastic job and gone over the odds of leveraging his training and skills in what he did and what he has done since for the customers,” Mr Buchanan said.
Flight JQ20 had left Kansai international airport in Osaka just before 11pm bound for the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, and made the emergency diversion to Guam about 2.20am local time (AEST)
Passengers were taken to hotels in Guam while Jetstar sent another aircraft from Australia to pick them up. It is due to leave the island shortly to transport the passengers to Brisbane.
One passenger on board the flight said those sitting in the cabin of the plane could smell smoke, but many were sleeping when the incident occurred. Adam Power told an Australian radio station the pilots kept everyone calm.
Advertisement
“I think their main aim was to just keep us calm,” he told 3AW. “There were no bumps or anything like that, just a heavy smell. I wouldn’t say it was a fire smell, it was like someone was cooking or something like that. A different sort of smoky smell ... it was a weird smell.”
Engineers in Guam are now assessing the plane, while airline representatives and aviation investigators are flying from Australia to conduct a thorough investigation.
“A team of investigators including operations, electrical engineer and licensed aircraft maintenance engineer will travel to Guam ? to commence the investigation,” the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement.
US and French aviation officials have also been informed of the incident.
It is the latest problem on board an Airbus A330 following the loss of the Air France flight AF447 off the Brazilian coast and an unexpected mid-air descent of a Qantas jet in Western Australia last year.
Advertisement
Simone Pregellio, a spokeswoman for Jetstar, said the airline had never experienced such a problem before and, despite it being the same make and roughly the same age (about two years old) as the Air France plane which crashed and killed all 228 people on board last week, the airline was not concerned about their Airbus A330 fleet.
“We have never had any problems like this before, this is an isolated incident,” Ms Pregellio told The Times.
“We are very confident in the fleet that we operate, we have got very high safety standards, we followed procedure in this case and believe it is completely unrelated.”