Qantas 747 forced to return to Bangkok International Airport after facing engine problems

SYDNEY - A Sydney bound Qantas flight carrying 352 passengers was forced to return to Bangkok Airport after it experienced engine problems.

News.com.au quoted a Qantas spokesman as saying that Flight QF2 plunged almost 8000 metres, and was about 30 minutes into its flight from Bangkok International Airport when one of its engines began “consuming fuel more quickly than normal,” and was forced to land back to the airport safely at about 7pm local time (11pm AEST).

Affected passengers are expected to spend a second night in temporary accommodation, as Qantas is struggling to send a replacement engine from Sydney for the troubled Boeing 747 today. He said that there were no other replacement Qantas aircraft available in Bangkok.

“As far as possible we will try and get passengers who need to return to Sydney urgently on other flights but that will be dependent on availability on other airlines,” the spokesman said.

Although the passengers claimed that the engine ‘blew’ mid air, the spokesman denied it, saying: “It was not actually an engine failure, the pilots did not shut the engine down they just reduced the thrust.”

The latest incident follows the emergency landing of a Boeing 737-400 yesterday after its cabin lost pressure on a flight from Adelaide to Melbourne. Almost 100 passengers on board the flight were forced to wear oxygen masks as pilots of flight QF670 announced that they would have to make a rapid descent from a cruising altitude of 36,000 feet to just 10,000 feet.

Last week a trans-Pacific flight carrying 375 passengers diverted to Fiji after suffering an engine problem while in November last year, Qantas suffered its most serious safety scare when an engine exploded mid-air en route to Sydney on board one of its flagship A380s. (ANI)