AirAsia Flight Returns to Brisbane Shortly After Takeoff

4th Jul 2017

This Monday, passengers of Malaysia AirAsia Flight D7207, which was bound for a return trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from Gold Coast, had an unpleasant and potentially very dangerous situation at hand when, not very long after their plane took off, they heard loud bangs and saw sparks flying out of the plan’s engine.

According to several passengers, the right engine appeared to ‘explode’ or catch on fire.

One passenger wrote on Facebook:

Successive sparks boom boom boom went off and some people were crying and calling out ‘oh my God oh my God.

Another wrote on Twitter:

That was quite an experience seeing the engine on fire.

The pilot, naturally, turned the plane back and returned to Brisbane, where he landed safely at 11:33 pm.

Following an examination, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority confirmed they found plover carcasses at Gold Coast Airport, where the plane took off.

CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said:

There was evidence on the runway of a bird strike.

Both he and AirAsia X Chief Executive Officer Benyamin Ismail praised the pilot and the crew for their swift reaction.

Mr Ismail said:

We are following all regulatory guidelines to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our guests. We would like to commend our pilot and crew members for their professionalism and swift action to reassure passengers ... and to land the aircraft safely.

Meanwhile, the airline arranged a replacement flight for Tuesday evening and passengers have been taken to hotels.

This is the second incident involving an AirAsia plane in Australia in two weeks. Last week, AirAsia flight between Perth and Kuala Lumpur was forced to turn back 90 minutes into the flight due to an engine malfunction. The plane landed safely at the runway at Perth Airport and investigators are still examining what went wrong with it.

One passenger said he heard something that sounded like a small explosion. He added:

It was literally like you were sitting on top of a washing machine.

In the meantime, AirAsia arranged a special flight to get passengers back to Kuala Lumpur.