Traumatic’: Qantas plane diverted after mid-air flames   

Sep 07, 2026
New Daily

A Qantas flight bound for Sydney was diverted in New Zealand after reports of an engine fire.

Liza-Jayne Loch was returning home from a business trip to New Zealand when her Qantas flight ran into trouble.

The plane was climbing above the scenic South Island’s mountain ranges on Saturday afternoon, bound for Sydney, when a bang shook the cabin.

A passenger seated nearest the left wing soon shouted “the engine’s on fire”, Loch recalled, as the cabin lights began to flicker.

Footage recorded by a passenger and shared with AAP shows flames appearing to issue from the plane’s left engine in a series of rapid bursts.

“I was sitting on the left-hand side of the plane, and the flames were very, very visible,” Loch said.

“There was a lot of screaming at the time.”


As the plane continued to gain altitude, Loch tried to comfort herself by recalling that modern jets could land safely on a single engine.

“That’s what I kept in my head, that we could actually fly on one engine,” she said.

“But the flames kept coming and the noise kept coming.”

QF122 suffered a suspected engine issue shortly after taking off from Queenstown on Saturday afternoon, before making a priority landing at Christchurch.


According to Flight Aware, the Boeing 737 landed about 52 minutes after take-off, touching down shortly before 5pm local time.

The cause of the incident has yet to be determined, but Qantas sent two engineers to Christchurch on Sunday to investigate.

Both engines are thought to have remained in operation for the duration of the flight.

Loch said conditions soon stabilised after the initial shock, while cabin staff took pains to comfort passengers.

“The crew were all terribly, terribly calming,” Loch said.

Emergency services were waiting on the tarmac when the flight landed, with passengers allowed to disembark as normal following a short wait.

“There were massive cheers when we landed,” Loch said.

A Qantas spokesperson said the plane was believed to have suffered an engine issue and steps would be taken to support affected customers.

“Our pilots are highly trained to manage situations like this and the aircraft landed safely,” they said.

“We know this would have been a distressing experience for passengers and will be contacting all customers to provide support.”

Affected passengers were put up in a hotel near the Christchurch International Airport before being booked on a complimentary flight to Sydney on Sunday.

While the second flight went off without a hitch, Loch said nerves were still high.

“I cried getting off the plane when we landed in Sydney,” Loch said.

“It was quite traumatic.”   

As for the Amazon cargo plane crash in Miami ...

Looks like pilot error.

They seem to have touched down almost halfway along the runway, left wing up, left gear off the ground, no reverse thrust?

What the? 

Why didn't they try a go-around well before attempting an impossible landing?   

Having actually met and spoken with the person in charge of Qantas maintenance Dept.
I did ask "Why the move to Malaysia?"
The simple and COMMON answer for a lot of major big league Companies and industries is "LABOUR COSTS TOO HIGH IN AUSTRALIA."

I didn't press the issue, just accepted and knew it to be true.

The only answer I could think of was a) The cost reflects the maintenance QUALITY
b) Malaysia can offer same quality for 1/2 the cost

????

...mind you, that was just after Qantas made the outsource move.
By now, Australian Airport maintenance is probably full of cheap Asian, Indian & Muslim city plebs of bumf#@kery quality on high wages now anyway. 

The quality of   Australian labour has declined since 2000.
Look at Sydney & Melbourne. All pleb Asian, Indian & Muslim bumf@#very low quality peanut workers now and the wages just get higher.

Labour costs were too high.
Its a problem for Australia.

Jasin wrote on Sep 7^th, 2026 at 2:15pm:


What about cost of insurance?

Captain Nemo wrote on Sep 7^th, 2026 at 11:11pm:


Could be a diversity hire.

whiteknight wrote on Sep 7^th, 2026 at 7:19am:



My cousin was a senior maintenance engineer with Qantas. Some years ago after Joyce took over it was decided to outsource maintenance to foreign companies. My cousin was one of those sent to examine the work of these companies and report back.

He told me that he was with a company in, I think, Singapore. A  technician was given the task of checking the bolts that hold the flight deck windows in place. A simple task that a first year apprentice could perform but an important one nonetheless.  The technician reported back that the task was complete.  My cousin said bullshit because the task could not possibly have been completed in that short amount of time.  Turns out that procedure in this company was to check every third bolt, not every bolt as the Qantas standards required. 

Now this  was acceptable practice within the manufacturers guidelines,  however Qantas was then known for standards well superior to acceptable  practice. This company got the contract against the advice of my cousin and his colleagues and here we are today.