‘We heard a loud bang and the plane started to shake’: Most passengers still in Bali after Cathay Pacific scare
Hong Kong-bound flight forced to make emergency landing in Denpasar
PUBLISHED : Friday, 25 September, 2015, 9:31am
UPDATED : Saturday, 26 September, 2015, 2:52am
Ben Westcott
[email protected]
The Airbus A330 was carrying 254 passengers from Perth. Photo: EPA
More than 100 passengers spent a second night in Bali yesterday after their Cathay Pacific flight was forced to make an emergency landing due to a problem with one of the plane's engines.
Passengers on Flight CX170 from Perth to Hong Kong on Thursday evening told Australian media they heard a "loud bang" before seeing sparks and flames on the engine. As the cabin went dark, the captain told passengers there was an engine problem.
But Cathay yesterday issued a statement denying the engine had caught fire. "We can confirm that what witnesses saw was a light due to the engine failure, not a real fire," it said. There was also no fire onboard, it added.
The airline said the Airbus A330 landed safely in Denpasar and all 267 people on board were unharmed. Of the 254 passengers, about 100 had already been placed on alternative aircraft out of Indonesia yesterday. The remainder stayed overnight in a hotel and were due to fly out of Denpasar this morning.
Passenger Joel Sirna told an Australian radio station how he heard the loud bang before spotting flames on the aircraft's wing.
"Mid-flight, we heard a loud bang and the plane started to shake, all the lights went out and I looked to the window and [saw] some flames and some sparks - the wing and the motor were on fire," Sirna told 6PR radio. "There were a few people who were pretty shaken. The girl next to me started freaking out and crying."
Passengers told media they were met by emergency vehicles upon landing, before waiting two hours to disembark. "Cathay did not have enough cash in Bali to process our arrival, so to clear immigration, we were told we had to pay the US$35 ourselves," a passenger told Nine News Australia.
The airline said: "Safety remains Cathay Pacific's highest priority."
The incident came just days after the South China Morning Post reported complaints from Cathay's pilots about new rostering arrangements that they said left pilots tired and put passengers at risk.
On Tuesday, the Post published a letter sent from Cathay pilots to the airline's management, calling for the problem of fatigue levels among the crew to be addressed.
"We feel strongly that these concerns need to be heard at the highest levels within the company and be placed on the record," the letter from the pilots said.
Hong Kong's Civil Aviation Department said it would keep an eye on the airline's investigation into Thursday's incident.
