Virgin plane engine catches fire forcing aircraft to make emergency landing

This is the moment one of the engines of a Virgin Australia airplane with 73 people on board caught fire.

Flames were spotted shortly after the Boeing 737-800 took off from Queenstown Airport on Monday.

There were 67 passengers and six crew members on board the aircraft bound for Melbourne.

It is understood that birds may have struck the engine of the jet – in an incident not as uncommon in the aviation industry.

The pilots were forced to make an emergency landing in the New Zealand city of Invercargill after the fire forced a diversion.

Stuart Aggs, the airline’s chief operations officer, said in a statement: ‘At this time, we are not aware of any physical injuries to guests or crew.’

Passengers will be accommodated in Invercargill overnight and new flights will be arranged.

The rate of birds striking planes at New Zealand’s airports is about four in every 10,000 aircraft movements, the country’s aviation regulator says on its website.

The consequences vary in severity depending on where the aircraft is hit, the size of the birds and the pilot’s reaction.

According to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), there were 5,460 such strikes in the UK between 2017 and 2021.

Seagulls, pigeons and swallows are usually the culprits, but usually there is no damaged reported to aircraft.

What happens when birds fly into plane engines?

Most incidents happen when birds collide with the windscreen or are sucked into the engine of a plane.

Needless to say, jets are designed and tested rigorously to withstand such attacks.

They are also able to fly with just one engine for some time and land safely in case of failure.

Though most such cases result in no damage, as shown by the CAA for instances in the UK, engine failures, crashes and emergency landings do happen as a result.

According to Interesting Engineering, the vast majority of bird strikes take place at airports during takeoff and landing.

The rest happens at cruising altitudes. Incidents have been recorded all the way up to 30,000 ft in the air.

Most of the time, the animals are sucked into the plane by the engines, being shredded to pieces inside.

The real danger comes from birds that are large enough to get stuck in the front fan. This can result in the halting of the operation of the plane’s engine.

Metro.co.uk has contacted Virgin Australia for a comment.

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