Jetstar ‘s mystery flight

A report in The Herald Sun says that an engine on the new Airbus A330 jet, carrying 300 passengers from Bangkok to Melbourne, was automatically shut down when the computer detected a fault with the fuel-injection system, elaving passengers on flight JQ30 stranded at Denpasar yesterday as Jetstar tried to organise customs and immigration clearance.

With passengers from the stricken flight were put up in hotels in Bali and arriving back in Melbourne on another plane early this morning, Jetstar yesterday defended its safety record, but the passengers said last night the flight had been delayed before leaving Bangkok and they had been told the cause was an auxiliary engine fault.

They were then advised in the air that the left engine was down and they would be landing in Bali.

Applause broke out as the plane made a perfect landing but the passengers said there had been no panic in the cabin after the captain told them an engine was not working.

Rosemary Beam De Azcona, from Melbourne, said there were no noises indicating anything was amiss, “I noticed it was a lot quieter and we were descending,” she said last night.

“I thought maybe he (the pilot) was just changing the altitude for a while to get away from turbulence.”

The plane landed about 30 minutes later in Bali.

Another passenger, Debra, said: “I would like to know why the plane took off in the first place.  “Everyone was thinking, ‘Why are we leaving?’

“No one wanted to be the person who speaks up about it but it was all really calm on the plane.”

Tim Cain, who had been in Thailand watching the Asian Cup soccer, was dozing when the announcement was made and had noticed nothing.

“It never felt out of control. The staff and the captain always kept us well-informed,” Mr Cain said.

He said frustrations began on arrival in Bali, with passengers forced to wait for hours in the airport with no real information about what would happen next.

“We are relying on second-hand sources for our information. We feel like we are secondary,” Mr Cain said.

Many passengers were angry at being made to sit inside the jet on the tarmac at Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport for almost two hours without airconditioning and refreshments, and almost two more hours in a transit lounge before being taken to hotels.

The disruption to Jetstar’s schedules led to last night’s Melbourne-Bangkok service being delayed by three hours, and the airline was forced to charter a Qantas plane on its Honolulu route.

The engine shutdown was the second major disruption to an international Jetstar flight in a month.

On June 29, a Sydney-Phuket flight was delayed for about 21 hours after lightning damaged a plane’s tail.

And in May, Jetstar passengers were stranded in Honolulu due to problems involving two A330 jets.

Jetstar CEO Alan Joyce said his aircraft were maintained by Qantas engineers and there was no question of cutting corners by the budget carrier.

“Our safety record is something that we’re pretty proud of as part of the Qantas group,” Mr Joyce said.

He said Qantas engineers with 20 years’ experience had told him they had never seen a similar incident to the engine shutdown.

Mr Joyce said Qantas engineers were in Bali to check the aircraft, which came into service just three weeks ago.

It was an isolated issue and there was no need to ground other A330 jets, he said.

Mr Joyce said each passenger would receive a minimum $100 Jetstar travel voucher for the disruption caused by the diversion to Bali.

“We apologise to passengers for the inconvenience that this has caused, but these things do take time when it’s an unscheduled arrival,” he said.

“There were no customs or immigration . . . because this was outside of the normal arrival times of flights.”

Report by The Mole