Jet in mid-air chaos

Captain urges passengers to ‘say a prayer’

THE pilot of a stricken AirAsia X plane told passengers to “say a prayer” after an apparent engine failure that forced the A330 to return to Perth yesterday morning.

The budget airline has already been under increased scrutiny from the air safety regulator over previous incidents and is facing another investigation after a turbine blade in the A330’s left engine allegedly sheared off less than two hours into a flight.

Passengers on flight D7237 en route to Kuala Lumpur have told how they heard a bang and looked out the window to see the left engine vibrating violently under the wing.

The aircraft started shuddering and a strong engine smell wafted through the cabin for a couple of minutes before the pilot made a U-turn to head back to Perth Airport.

With terrified passengers in the “brace position”, the aircraft landed safely at 10am, three hours after it had initially departed.

Sophie Nicolas, one of the 359 passengers on board the flight, said she heard a small explosion from the left wing.

“I couldn’t see anything ... the plane just started shuddering a lot,” she said. “You could tell by the cabin crew’s reaction that it was really bad.”

She said the Captain asked everyone to remain seated and announced the plane would return to Perth.

“He said ‘I hope you all say a prayer, I’ll be saying a prayer too and let’s hope we all get back home safely’,” she said.

“It was terrifying.

“I was crying a lot ... a lot of people were crying, trying to call their mums and stuff. But we couldn’t really do anything, just wait and trust the Captain and he delivered us home safely, which is amazing.”

Passengers were reminded of safety procedures and they practised the brace position for landing during the slow journey back to Perth as emergency services waited anxiously on the ground. AirAsia X said yesterday that flight crews were taking precautionary measures to check the aircraft and passengers were being attended by ground staff.

“The safety of our guests is our utmost priority,” the airline said.

But Australia’s crash and regulatory watchdogs will want to know why the pilots of the A330 did not divert to Learmonth, just 25 minutes away, rather than fly the 90 minutes back to Perth.