Raw Video: Flight to Australia makes emergency landing after engine explodes

Sept 01, 2010 Sky News A passenger plane traveling from San Francisco to Australia was forced to make an emergency landing after one of its engines burst into flames. A newly-wed returning from his honeymoon in the United States filmed the incident on his mobile phone about 15 minutes after take-off. The footage shows one of the Qantas Airways Boeing 747apos;s four engines shooting out sparks in a process known as quot;engine surgequot;. quot;I heard a thud, a bump and the plane veered off to the left,quot; passenger Nolan Goldstein told KTVU-TV. quot;It was very uncertain for a period of time until the captain announced that we had an engine that blew up. quot;It was a real uncomfortable vibration at first and then the plane began to shake a bit.quot; The crew shut down the affected engine before returning to San Francisco International Airport. A spokesman for Qantas Airways said the pilot dumped fuel over the Pacific as a precaution before the emergency landing. He said none of the 212 passengers and 18 crew were injured during the incident. quot;Engineers have determined the engine does need replacement, and they are checking to see what caused the problem,quot; he added. The flames created a large hole in the engine cowling. Experts said this kind of engine failure, where a piece of the engine breaks off and pierces the cowling, is quot;an extremely rare eventquot;. Aviation consultant John Nance said Boeing 747s quot;are designed to actually lose three of four engines and still be able to get backquot;.