SYDNEY: Following the issuance of a mayday alert on Wednesday afternoon, a Qantas flight from Auckland has safely landed in Sydney. As a "precaution" for the 148 passengers on board, a sizable emergency response team, including fire, federal police, and ambulance staff, was sent to Sydney Airport.
On Wednesday, shortly after 2:00 p.m., the pilot of flight QF144 from Auckland reported that one of the twin engines had malfunctioned and was losing power. This was about an hour outside of Sydney. One of the flight's engines "had a fault," a Qantas representative told 7NEWS.com.au.
According to sources, the airplane successfully landed at about 3:30 p.m., and the engineers are currently inspecting it. The 145 people got off the plane without incident. Although in-flight engine shutdowns are unusual and would undoubtedly be unsettling for passengers, pilots are prepared to handle them safely and our aircraft are built to fly for a long time on one engine.
According to Flight Aware, the aircraft made a single-engine, long-distance landing at around 3.29 p.m. This kind of situation, according to the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA), is "very rare."
"We are glad that the very skilled and competent Qantas pilots handled the event appropriately and were able to safely land back in Sydney. The safety of our passengers and crew is the top priority for any pilot, it said. "It's too soon to make assumptions about the reason for the engine failure."
As the plane touched down in Sydney, about 135,000 people were watching it, a Flightradar representative told 7NEWS.com.au. They said, "About 150,000 individuals watched the flight in all." "Although the flight was closely monitored, no records were broken.
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