A passenger has described "dramatic" scenes on board yesterday's Virgin Australia flight diverted to Invercargill following suspected bird strike.
Virgin Australia flight VA148 had left Queenstown for Melbourne at 6pm yesterday before it was seen circling off the coast of Bluff, according to FlightRadar.
This morning Virgin confirmed passengers were provided accommodation overnight in Invercargill and buses will now transport them to Queenstown Airport. They would be flown to Brisbane and then on to Melbourne.
Virgin Australia chief operations officer Stuart Aggs confirmed yesterday that "all passengers have disembarked VA148, which landed safely at New Zealand's Invercargill Airport following a possible bird-strike after departing from Queenstown Airport".
Passenger heard 'bang' after takeoff
Tourist Michael Hayward told 1News he filmed the "dramatic take-off" from his window.
"[The] plane starts to take off and then 10 seconds later… bang! Flames coming out the right-hand engine… [the] cabin starts to glow from the various shots coming out of the engine. It was quite the dramatic take-off I must say."
He said there was initially "a bit of panic" from passengers who could see the flames.
"Ultimately within a few minutes people started to talk to each other and calm each other down."
He said the mood in the cabin was "fairly calm" in the hour before the flight landed.
"The flight crew [onboard] and even the aftercare from Virgin Australia has been superb, no complaints about it," he said.
A Virgin Australia flight bound for Melbourne was diverted to Invercargill last night following suspected bird strike. (Source: Breakfast)
He said within 20 minutes there had been an announcement from the pilot informing passengers the plane had "flown through a flock of birds" and was in a stable position after losing an engine.
Hayward was not sure what time exactly his next flight out would be, just that he would be transported back to Queenstown Airport to then make his way home to London.
There were 67 passengers and six crew on board at the time of the incident.
Virgin said there were "no reports of injuries" from this incident.
Flames from engine 'not normal' — aviation expert
Aviation Projects Australia's managing director Keith Tonkin told Breakfast that seeing flames from the engine would have been "quite distressing" for passengers.
"It's dangerous if both engines stop working, but pilots are trained to deal with those sorts of problems every time they do a simulator session, they make sure they can perform those engine failure drills."
He said the footage appeared to show the engine was "probably not very happy at the moment".
"From the imagery I saw where flames [were] coming out, that's not normal. And it means something is not working very well inside. So it will have to be fixed up and another one put on before that plane is going anywhere."
He said the flames at night would seem "much larger and more obvious than they would during the day".
How passengers can help themselves be safer
Tonkin said it was important to ensure people were wearing their seatbelts and were strapped in properly in case there were any turbulence issues.
"I think the main thing is to understand where we can expect turbulence and avoid it if we can or be prepared for it. And there's a lot of work that goes into that forecasting endeavour.
"There is research that shows there are increasingly intense clear air turbulence events happening due to climate change and we need to be aware of that as well.
He pointed out the rate of accidents "is low and getting lower" as systems developed and improved.
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