Plane makes emergency landing in Sydney with huge hole in engine casing

A China Eastern flight from Sydney to Shanghai has been forced to turn around after engine failure caused a mid-air emergency.

“The moment that we took off the wing to my left just started making a massive amount of noise and they cleared all the seats,” a passenger told the Nine Network.

Images show a huge hole in the engine casing of the Airbus A330 which was forced to circle for an hour before touching down safely.

#ChinaEastern flight #MU736 returns after engine fault detected after take-off from Sydney, no casualties https://t.co/8S7j3p3nvX pic.twitter.com/txkuxpMLwM

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) 11 июня 2017 г.

Flight MU736 left Sydney bound for Shanghai at 8.30pm on Sunday evening but pilots reported problems about an hour into the journey. It returned to Sydney where it landed safely and passengers were evacuated with no injuries, said Kathy Zhang, a general manager at China Eastern Airlines.

“The crew observed the abnormal situation of the left engine and decided to return to Sydney airport immediately. All passengers and crew members were landed safely,” she said.

“We went up in the air and all of a sudden ... it kind of smelled like burning,” another passenger told Network Seven.

With the majority of announcements on board made in Chinese, English-speaking passengers said they were struggling to find out any details.

“I was scared. Yes. I was really scared. Our group was terrified,” the passenger told Seven.

Another passenger, identified only as Eva, said the cabin crew tried to calm passengers and told them to fasten their seatbelts after a noise was heard.

“We were very panicked because we had no idea what was happening,” she told Channel 9 television.

Passengers were put up in hotels at Sydney airport and were expected to depart for Shanghai later on Monday morning. Despite the havoc, passengers applauded airline staff for their professionalism.

Several other flights out of Sydney were cancelled on Monday morning before thick fog that blanketed the city cleared after sunrise.

The flight was a code-share with Qantas. A spokesperson for the airline confirmed that a “small number” of passengers were on the Sydney to Shanghai service and said it was “working with China Eastern to reaccommodate impacted passengers onto other services”.

A spokeswoman for Rolls-Royce, which manufactured the plane’s Trent 700 series engines, said in a statement: “We are aware of the incident and will be working closely with our customer and relevant partners to understand the cause of the issue.”

Professor Jason Middleton, an aviation expert at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, told Reuters it appeared that the engine cowling had been ripped away forward of the main compressor blade.

“When one of these things happens you often don’t know how the damage began. It could have begun from loose screws,” he told the ABC.

The Australia Transport Safety Bureau said it was investigating the incident.

Zhang said a comprehensive investigation would involve aviation authorities from Australia and China.

“The engine for the aircraft is a big issue so we need to investigate with the governments, with the Rolls Royce company and with our headquarters as well,” she said.

Originally published on The Guardian