{"id":882010,"date":"2026-09-06T11:06:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T11:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/882010\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T11:06:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T11:06:21","slug":"the-engines-on-fire-qantas-flight-from-queenstown-to-sydney-reroutes-after-flames-seen-by-passengers-sydney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/882010\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The engine\u2019s on fire\u2019: Qantas flight from Queenstown to Sydney reroutes after flames seen by passengers | Sydney"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liza-Jayne Loch was returning home from a business trip to New Zealand when her Qantas<\/a> flight ran into trouble.<\/p>\n

The plane was climbing above the scenic South Island\u2019s mountain ranges on Saturday afternoon, bound for Sydney<\/a>, when a bang shook the cabin.<\/p>\n

A passenger seated near the left wing soon shouted \u201cthe engine\u2019s on fire\u201d, Loch recalled, as the cabin lights began to flicker.<\/p>\n

Footage recorded by a passenger and shared with AAP shows flames appearing to issue from the plane\u2019s left engine in a series of rapid bursts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was sitting on the left-hand side of the plane, and the flames were very, very visible,\u201d Loch said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of screaming at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the plane continued to gain altitude, Loch tried to comfort herself by recalling that modern jets could land safely on a single engine.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I kept in my head, that we could actually fly on one engine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the flames kept coming and the noise kept coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Qantas flight QF122 suffered a suspected engine issue shortly after taking off from Queenstown<\/a> on Saturday afternoon, before making a priority landing at Christchurch.<\/p>\n

According to FlightAware, the Boeing 737 landed about 52 minutes after takeoff, touching down shortly before 5pm local time.<\/p>\n

The cause of the incident has yet to be determined, but Qantas<\/a> sent two engineers to Christchurch on Sunday to investigate.<\/p>\n

Both engines are thought to have remained in operation for the duration of the flight.<\/p>\n

Loch said conditions soon stabilised after the initial shock, while cabin staff sought to comfort passengers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crew were all terribly, terribly calming,\u201d Loch said.<\/p>\n

Emergency services were waiting on the tarmac when the flight landed, with passengers allowed to disembark as normal after a short wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were massive cheers when we landed,\u201d Loch said.<\/p>\n

A Qantas spokesperson said the plane was believed to have suffered an engine issue and steps would be taken to support affected customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur pilots are highly trained to manage situations like this and the aircraft landed safely,\u201d they said.<\/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

Affected passengers were put up in a hotel near the Christchurch international airport before being booked on a complimentary flight to Sydney on Sunday.<\/p>\n

While the second flight went off without a hitch, Loch said nerves were still high.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cried getting off the plane when we landed in Sydney,\u201d Loch said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was quite traumatic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liza-Jayne Loch was returning home from a business trip to New Zealand when her Qantas flight ran into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-882010","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\/882010","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=882010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}