Posted on 06/18/2024 6:02:38 AM PDT by Red Badger
In short:
* A Virgin Australia plane made an emergency landing shortly after taking off from Queenstown Airport after one of the engines caught fire.
* Chief operations officer Stuart Aggs said the incident may have have been caused by a bird strike.
* What's next? Passengers will be accommodated in Invercargill overnight and new flights will be arranged.
VIDEO AT LINK...................
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A Virgin Australia plane has landed safely in New Zealand after a fire shut down one of its engines, according to the nation's fire service.
The Boeing 737-800 jet was bound for Melbourne, with 67 passengers and six crew members on board, when the engine fire forced a diversion to Invercargill Airport.
Virgin Australia chief operations officer Stuart Aggs said in an emailed statement "a possible bird strike" might have caused the incident.
Flames were seen shortly after the plane took off from Queenstown Airport at 5:50pm, local time.
Catherine Nind, an airport spokesperson, said there was no further information about the incident available.
"At this time, we are not aware of any physical injuries to guests or crew," the spokesperson said.
Passengers will be accommodated in Invercargill overnight and new flights will be arranged, she said.
Queenstown, with a population of 53,000, is a popular tourist destination on New Zealand's South Island, famous for skiing, adventure tourism and alpine vistas.
Bird strikes happen at New Zealand airports at a rate of about four in every 10,000 aircraft movements, the country's aviation regulator says on its website.
The consequences vary in severity depending on where the aircraft are hit, the size of the birds involved and the pilots' reaction, the Civil Aviation Authority says.
The incident came after New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was forced to take a commercial flight to Japan on Sunday when a defence force plane broke down.
New Zealand media reported that the Boeing (BA.N) 757 broke down during a refuelling stop in Papua New Guinea, leaving the business delegation and journalists stranded in Port Moresby, while Mr Luxon flew on a commercial flight to Japan.
AVIATION Ping!........................
Paging Burt Munro...
May have to start a separate Boeing 737 ping list.
Let's just say that it wasn't the worst day in my life.
I would imagine there was more than just one airline flying in and out of Honolulu, and United could have done their job better and put their passengers on one of those.
They could have, but they basically just gave us a list of airlines that flew to the mainland and told us they would honor the ticket. So we waitlisted. Continental finally got me a flight to LAX about 15 hours later but had the decency to tell me it would be at least 12, so I deposited my luggage with them and took a bus into town.
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