A pilot has told passengers on an AirAsia flight from Perth to “say a prayer” while the plane shook violently after a loud bang.
Passengers told news outlets the noise, which happened about 90 minutes into the flight to Kuala Lumpur, was so loud it woke some passengers up.
The plane then began to intensely vibrate as the captain reportedly told passengers that a blade sheared off an engine.
Passenger Sophie Nicholas told Perth Now that the captain asked everyone to remain seated while they returned to Perth.
“He said ‘I hope you all say a prayer, I’ll be saying a prayer too and let’s hope we all get back home safely’,” she recalled.
“It was terrifying.”
“I was crying a lot … a lot of people were crying, trying to call their mums and stuff,” she told ABC.
“But we couldn’t really do anything, just wait and trust the captain and he delivered us home safely, which is amazing.”
An early announcement over the loudspeaker did little to reassure passengers.
“Please listen to everything,” a man said. “Our survival depends on your cooperating. Hopefully everything will turn out for the best.”
Another passenger, Dave Parry, said a strange smell wafted through the cabin before the captain announced the engine had seized.
“I had a sense the plane was turning and then the captain announced that it appeared the left engine had seized,” he reported.
“He said ‘we don’t know the details of why, we will get back to you’.”
Despite the successful landing, Australia’s crash and regulatory watchdogs want to know why the pilots didn’t divert the A330 to Learmonth, which was 25 minutes away, instead of flying the full 90 minutes back to Perth.
AirAsia told Nine News it had no reason to think the problem was caused by engine trouble, instead blaming a vague “technical issue”.
While shaken passengers queued to rebook their flights, some decided to spend an extra couple of days in Perth before jumping on another plane.
Mr Chung said he and his family, who had been in Perth on holidays, were also unlikely to get straight on another flight. “I think we’ll stay an extra night or two just to catch our breath.”
