Brand new Jetstar A330 makes emergency landing in Bali

The Herald Sun

A BRAND new Airbus forced to make an emergency landing in Bali this morning with just one engine had a separate fault when it first departed Melbourne.

Hundreds of Jetstar passengers are stranded in Indonesia because of the Airbus 330-200’s engine problem. They have been put up in hotels and are now not due back in Melbourne until 2.30am tomorrow.

The JQ30 Bangkok-to-Melbourne flight captain diverted the aircraft four hours into its journey after a computer detected a fault and shut down one of the plane’s two engines as a precaution.

It has emerged the same plane departed Melbourne an hour late because of an unrelated auxiliary power glitch.

The aircraft, which came off a French production line just three weeks ago and was carrying 302 passengers and 12 crew, has now been grounded while engineers investigate the engine fault.

But Jetstar and Qantas will continue to fly the rest of their Airbus fleet. Passengers will return to Melbourne on board the same make and model involved in this morning’s incident and will be offered at least $100 compensation.

Jetstar chief Alan Joyce today apologised to passengers.

“It’s something that shouldn’t have happened on the aircraft,” Mr Joyce said.

“The airline takes this very seriously,” Mr Joyce said.

But he insisted passenger safety was not at risk.

Mr Joyce said the Airbus could fly on one engine for 12 hours.

The aircraft was scheduled to land in Melbourne at 9.05am today. It instead touched down at Denpasar airport at 6.45am.

Passengers in the mid-air drama were forced to wait on the tarmac for two hours before getting clearance from Indonesian customs and immigration authorities.

The replacement plane has left Sydney on its way to Bali this afternoon and will depart from Denpasar between 8pm and 9pm.

Mr Joyce said the five other Airbus aircraft in the Jetstar fleet were four to five years’ old and there was no sign of a widespread problem.

Engineers at Denpasar are still investigating the cause of the fault.

Jetstar will seek compensation from the manufacturers to cover the cost of passenger accommodation and connecting flights.

A passenger known only as Basil said the incident was handled well.

“My daughter actually got up to go to the toilet and about the same time the plane started to descend,” he told Southern Cross Radio from the plane on the tarmac at Denpasar.

“There was no noise or anything. The pilot said that (we’d do an) emergency landing and all should go okay and it did.”

He said fire engines and ambulances were on standby as the plane landed.

Another passenger, Mark, said the pilot made an announcement as they approached Denpasar airport that one of the engines had stopped.

“They just said one of the engines stopped and they couldn’t start it again so they put the plane down in Bali,” Mark said.

“It was a normal landing, you wouldn’t have known the engine was out,” he said.