QANTAS: Oh No! Fiji flight turns back to Sydney with fault indicator light

Flight QF101 on a Boeing 737-800 to Nadi, Fiji circled off the coast before landing at Sydney around 10:50 am. The flight deck indicated a potential mechanical issue requiring it ,in line with Qantas safety procedures, to return to Sydney.

Yesterday (Tuesday 18 January), QF144, a New Zealand flight called a ‘Mayday’ emergency an hour before arriving in Sydney due to the loss of its left-hand engine. That flight also on a Boeing 737-800 landed safely with one engine operating and the passengers only found out the seriousness of the difficulties once they had landed.

Today’s flight to Fiji returned due to a fault indicator light inside the cockpit, signalling a potential hazard. These lights are triggered automatically. It is standard safety practice for pilots to turn back as a precaution in these circumstances, so engineers can inspect the jet to see if an actual fault is present.

Qantas is working on a new flight to Fiji for the passengers affected by the return of the flight to Sydney.

2PAXfly Takeout

Qantas, has had some engineering issues to deal with over the holiday period. This is the second flight that has had difficulties in the last 2 days, plus an A380 flight out of Singapore bound for London was diverted to Baku in Azerbaijan due to an indication that there might be a fire in the cargo hold. Turned out the fire sensor was faulty

These incidents are under investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

Today’s issue is not uncommon, and probably indicates the health of the Qantas safety regime rather than an engineering or maintenance failure.