Jetstar A320 Forced To Return To Cairns

[NickN]

May 1, 2009 - 11:09AM
A Jetstar Airbus A320 that took off from Cairns airport on Friday morning was forced to return after the pilot noticed a hydraulic leak.

Fire and ambulance crews were called around 9.45am (AEST), but were not required.

A Jetstar spokeswoman said the pilot made several loops of the airport before undertaking a "standard air return" at the airport, landing without incident.

The Brisbane-bound plane had 175 passengers on board.

"Engineers at Cairns are now looking into it," the spokeswoman said.

She said passengers should be on another flight within hours


http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/jetstar-jet-returns-to-cairns-after-leak-20090501-api6.html

I assume this was flight JQ929?

[Dave Parer]

Flight was JQ931.

Aircraft was VH-VQJ.

[NickN]

Correct, looking at Webtrak now, they circled over Port Douglas for quite some time, departure was approx 9.05am and they landed again at approx 9.56am so they spent quite some time in the air resolving the situation.

[Mark Grima]

Resolving the situation or burning fuel rather then dumping it?

Cheers

M

[NickN]

Hard to tell Mark, have no idea how much fuel they departed with. Seeing it was only CNS-BNE I doubt they'd be over the Max Landing Weight. Probably resolving the issue to ensure it was safe to land again.

[Steve Bottom]

Jetstar A320 VH-VQJ declared a PAN emergency this morning at 9.20 departing Cairns as JST-931 Carins to Brisbane

VQJ reported to ATC a total hydraulic failure and was returning to Cairns for an emergency landing, The aircraft flew north of Cairns to position CODIE and did a number of orbits to work out what systems he had and what he didn't have.

Pilot told ATC that he had lost hydraulics and that they would find it on the runway !

The Cairns airport went into full emergency mode and all services were on stand by.

VQJ landed around 30 mins later, after tell ATC that the landing roll would be longer than normal.

External indications of a malfunction were limited to the center landing gear doors still down , and the flight spoilers remained up even after the aircraft stopped at the gate, VQJ was followed by multi fire units from the airport service.

I interviewed pax after the flight and all told of numerous grinding sounds followed by an announcement by the pilot that the landing gear would not retract, and not too much more.

Pax left on VH-JQE that was to do the Singapore run , JQE departed to Brisbane at 12.44

My story should run high on the TEN Brisbane news at 5.00pm today..

[NickN]

Now all I need is your SBS transmission via PP Steve!

[Raymond Rowe]

The A320 canno't dump fuel.

[Philip Argy]

Can it land with a full fuel load?

[Chris Roope]

Please refrain from quoting the whole post above in your post - mod

It wont necessarily be below maximum landing weight no, however in emergency situations landing above maximum landing weight is permissible and safe, it just requires certain ground inspections to be carried out prior to further flight.

[Mark Grima]

Oh wow, didn't know that thing for the info Ray.

Cheers

M