Qantas’ flight woes continue as fault forces US-bound jet to divert to Fiji

SYDNEY - A Qantas flight carrying almost 400 people from Sydney to New York was diverted to Fiji after a fuel valve fault, just four days after another safety scare on one of its planes.

A Qantas spokeswoman said that QF107 had left Sydney at 12.15pm on Tuesday and was heading towards New York via Los Angeles when the flight crew spotted a fault in a fuel valve of the Boeing 747-400 aircraft.

The plane was diverted to Nadi airport in Fiji.

“Twenty passengers were transferred to an Air Pacific flight to Los Angeles, while the remaining 354 passengers, four flight crew and 16 cabin crew were provided accommodation in Nadi for the night,” the Age quoted the spokeswoman, as saying.

Engineers fixed the fault overnight, and the flight departed for Los Angeles at 9a.m. today.

Earlier on Saturday, Qantas Flight QF11 had failed to take off to Los Angeles after one of its engines suffered a complete failure. There were 344 passengers onboard.he passengers on the flight had claimed that they had heard a “loud bang”, and later noticed black smoke coming out of the damaged engine.

The captain had then reportedly announced over the intercom that the engine was completely damaged.

“As it was taxiing for take-off, it had a low-speed engine failure of the number one engine. There was a noise and an indication in the cockpit … it was a contained engine failure, there was no fire,” a Qantas spokeswoman had said.

Qantas had to ground its entire A380 fleet in November last year after one of the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines exploded mid-air shortly after take-off from Singapore.

The total cost of grounding its entire fleet of A380s, and replacing 16 of the A380 engines, has been estimated at 80 million dollars. (ANI)