{"id":880698,"date":"2026-09-05T08:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880698\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T08:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:22:11","slug":"qf122-qantas-plane-diverted-after-flames-appear-to-burst-from-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880698\/","title":{"rendered":"QF122: Qantas plane diverted after flames appear to burst from engine"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Qantas plane bound for Sydney<\/a> from Queenstown in New Zealand<\/a> has been diverted to Christchurch after flames appeared to sputter from the engine.<\/p>\n

Flight QF122 was scheduled to fly back to Australia on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A Qantas plane bound for Queenstown in New Zealand has been diverted to Christchurch after flames appeared to sputter from the engine.\u00a0Aimee Folwell<\/p>\n

Vision from the ground shows what appears to be several flames bursting intermittently out of the engine.<\/p>\n

A Qantas<\/a> spokesperson said the plane experienced an engine issue and has since landed safely.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our flights to Sydney experienced a suspected engine issue after take-off from Queenstown this afternoon and the aircraft diverted to Christchurch,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur pilots are highly trained to manage situations like this and the aircraft landed safely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know this would have been a distressing experience for passengers and will be contacting all customers to provide support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Passengers on board will be provided accommodation and re-accommodated on other flights.<\/p>\n

Local media reported emergency services were waiting on the tarmac but all passengers disembarked safely.<\/p>\n

Witness Mark Venning told New Zealand news website\u00a0Stuff<\/a>: \u201cI was driving along Frankton Rd and heard the popping sounds, like loud gunshots.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooked up and saw orange flames being ejected from the left engine,\u201d Venning said.<\/p>\n

Brothers Daniel and Campbell Longmire told the publication they were sitting at home in Frankton when they saw the plane take off.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts left engine start spitting out flames and then I got everyone to go look because I thought it was a one-off thing,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then it was flying over and it did like maybe six or seven flame bursts and loud bangs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel said the explosions were so loud many of their neighbours ran out onto their balconies to watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really loud, it really echoed around the valley,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Were you on the flight? Contact reporter Emily Bennett at ebennett@nine.com.au.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Qantas plane bound for Sydney from Queenstown in New Zealand has been diverted to Christchurch after flames…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-880698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}