A Qantas Airways plane bound for Brisbane suffered an engine failure after takeoff on Friday and circled for a short period of time before returning safely to Sydney Airport, the Australian airline said.
Passengers heard a loud bang from one of the aircraft’s two engines, Australian media reported.
A journalist with national broadcaster ABC was on the flight and said there was a “sharp shudder” on the plane after the loud noise, his news outlet reported.
“It was apparent something had happened with one of the engines, then the plane seemed to labor to get off the ground or get any altitude,” ABC journalist Mark Willacy said.
Qantas did not disclose the number of passengers or crew aboard the narrow-body plane, which its website states offers 12 business and 162 economy seats.
The airline said its engineers had conducted a preliminary inspection of the engine and confirmed it was a contained engine failure, meaning the internal engine parts stayed within the protective housing designed to keep them safely enclosed.
Uncontained engine failures, where engine fragments fly out of this housing, can result in serious damage to the main body of an aircraft.
Qantas flight QF520 took off from Sydney at 12:35 p.m. (8.35 p.m. Thursday ET), circled a few times and diverted to land at Sydney, tracking data from Flightradar24 showed.
The aircraft’s departure coincided with a grass fire breaking out alongside Sydney Airport’s parallel runway, which was brought under control by teams from the aviation firefighting rescue service, the airport said in a statement.
“It’s not clear at this stage if the two incidents are linked and investigations are continuing,” the airport added. Qantas said the plane landed safely after appropriate procedures were conducted and added it would be investigating the cause of the engine issue.
The plane is a 19-year-old Boeing 737-800, according to Flightradar24.
That model is powered by engines from CFM International, a joint venture between GE Aerospace and France’s Safran.