Emergency landing

We arrive into Gold Coast about 10 minutes behind schedule. The transit was uneventful and thankfully my duty free gin from Auckland made it through security without being confiscated (met all the requirements of tamper-proof transparent bag with receipt inside).

A new crew welcomed us aboard.  The purser started his announcement but then realised he forgot the new addition to the announcement re “World’s Best Low Cost Airline for nine years running” and quickly re-started it with that addition.

We departed again about 15 minutes behind the scheduled time of at 2220. Soon after lifting off, we heard several loud bangs. There appeared to be a bit of a glow through the windows on the other side of the cabin. There was some vibration as well. The bangs were surprisingly very metal-on-metal, like hammer on a metal plate, leading both of us to think the landing gear hit a mechanical obstruction while being retracted. Not a “boom” kind of explosive sound.

The crew made announcements to remain seated, turn all devices off including phones, tablets, kindles etc. The airline had some bad press about a diversion a couple of weeks back when some thought they should have landed immediately at an unserviced airport, with vibration coming from a shut-down engine. So, they may want as little incriminating evidence as possible.

After some waiting the pilot announced that there had been some sparks in the right engine and we would be landing in Brisbane. We flew at low altitude and landed less than half hour after take-off, around 2310. I don’t think we dumped any fuel as we were low overland for most of our time airborne.

There was lots of clapping when we touched down safely with fire engines following as soon as we had slowed down to taxiing speed. Once parked, a fireman boarded to brief the captain on his observation. He overheard that there were some broken blades in the engine.

Edit:  Some 10 months later, the Australian investigation confirmed the cause was a birdstrike. Multiple birds entered the engine but one bird (max 400g) under specific angle and conditions caused a small section of blade to break off, cause further damage and an engine fire. Being a regular on the budget airline, it was of great comfort to read that “the flight crew effectively managed the abnormal situation and diversion”.  The report is available here.