It's been revealed what caused a Boeing 737's left engine to shut down on a routine flight from Auckland to Sydney, which had 145 passengers and seven crew on board.
A mayday emergency was declared on January 18 this year when the engine couldn't be restarted, forcing the crew to make an emergency landing at Sydney Airport.
Today, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) released its investigation into the incident, revealing what caused the issue.
"A subsequent engine teardown inspection identified separation of the radial driveshaft in the engine's inlet gearbox, which resulted in a mechanical discontinuity between the engine core and accessory gearbox," ATSB's director of transport safety Kerri Hughes explained.
"Loss of drive to the accessory gearbox resulted in a loss of fuel pump pressure and un-commanded shutdown of the engine."
The ATSB has also praised the crew for making the decision to land in Sydney and not Norfolk Island which it was 150km closer to.
"In contrast, Sydney Airport was on the aircraft's direct route, had favourable weather conditions forecast, had an extensive emergency response, and a straight-in approach on a very long runway," Hughes noted.
"The decision to continue to Sydney ensured no additional risk was added to an already high workload situation."
The safety bureau said the cockpit voice recorder was inadvertently overwritten during maintenance activity following the incident.
While the data wasn't deemed critical to this investigation, the ATSB said it could've been helpful.
Qantas said it is taking steps to ensure voice recorders are "quarantined" after similar incidents.
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