Smoke clouds Jetstar inquiry

THE national transport safety investigator will examine what caused a Jetstar aircraft’s engine to fail and the Cairnsbound flight to be diverted to Brisbane. Passengers told the Cairns

Post the cabin started to fill with smoke and a strange grating noise could be heard in the undercarriage about 40 minutes after takeoff from Sydney about 4pm on Thursday.

Flight JQ956, an Airbus A320 with 173 passengers onboard, landed safely in Brisbane about 5.25pm.

An Australian Transport Safety Bureau spokesman yesterday confirmed the incident was subject to an investigation, which could take several months.

“At this early stage we don’t know why the engine failed,” he said.

“Therefore we don’t know if there have been similar issues.”

The budget airline has played down the unscheduled diversion.

“The captain decided to shut down one of the engines as a precaution and divert the aircraft to Brisbane,” said a Jetstar spokesman.

“The hazy smoke seen in the video happened when the aircraft had landed safely in Brisbane and shortly before the passengers disembarked.

“The smoke would have entered the cabin through the air conditioning unit, which runs via air from the engines.” But passengers, including

Cairns Post general manager Nick Trompf, reported smoke in the cabin about 40 minutes into the journey while the aircraft was mid-flight. Jetstar engineers are also investigating what caused the engine failure.

The incident quickly gained traction online with Cairns

Post readers sharing their own stories.

“This happened to me years ago on a Jetstar flight from Sydney to Gold Coast, thought I was going to die,” wrote Kim Woodchuck.

“Ended up landing in Brisbane six hours after I was supposed to ... and I had my sixmonth-old with me.”

Yesterday, more than 100 people were evacuated from a Qantas aircraft at Perth Airport after unconfirmed reports of fumes in the cabin or cockpit. The Fokker 100 was operating flight QF1623 from Newman in WA’s Pilbara to Perth.