A passenger on yesterday’s Air New Zealand flight that landed with smoke billowing from an engine has spoken of the moment she saw “glowing” coming from outside the plane as it prepared to land in Wellington.
Lucy MacLeod was sitting next to her son on flight NZ5366 from Christchurch to the capital when she looked out her window and saw a “glowing red light” coming from the engine.
“And then the glow got larger… turned out to be flames, a bit of smoke and, as we were landing, someone yelled out ‘fire’,” MacLeod said.
“Hard landing; all the power went off; big billowing smoke appeared outside.”
She said there was some “mild panic” among some passengers, but there was a real sense that people were trying to do the right thing and follow crew instructions.
She said the cabin crew were calm and leapt into action as soon as the pilots gave the order to evacuate.
MacLeod said she and her son were some of the last off the ATR72-600 aircraft.
Lucy MacLeod says someone yelled “fire” as the plane approached the Wellington runway. (Source: 1News)
“Scary, it was scary, there was a lot of teenagers on the flight… there was a baby, there was a beagle in the cargo hold, so everybody had their family to worry about. We wanted to follow the instructions as best we could, but we wanted to get off that plane as fast as possible, especially when we saw the smoke.”
She praised the response of the crew, the airline and the airport, saying Air NZ had also been in contact via email and phone since the landing.
The Transport Accident Investigation Commission said today it has opened an inquiry into an incident that occurred around 4.11pm yesterday as the plane was on final approach at a height of about 91m.
“It’s reported there was a low oil pressure caution, then an engine fault and engine fire warning. The pilot declared a mayday, landed safely and stopped on the runway,” acting chief investigator of Accidents Louise Cook said.
“Airport emergency services attended promptly and passengers and crew were evacuated on to the runway, with no serious injuries reported.”
Investigators were at the scene today.
Air New Zealand said there was no ongoing disruption to flights but couldn’t provide more details about what had occurred while the TAIC investigation was ongoing.
