Perhaps the title should have read "Qantas Pilot saves Jetstar Aircraft"?
Emergency landing: fire on board Jetstar flight to Gold Coast
A cockpit fire has forced an international Jetstar flight carrying 203 people into an emergency landing on the tiny Pacific island of Guam.
The A330-200 aircraft - flight JQ 20 - left Osaka's Kansai International Airport for the Gold Coast just before 11pm last night (AEST) carrying 186 adult passengers, four infants and 13 crew including nine cabin crew and four pilots.
Jetstar says a small number of Australians were on board the plane, which was carrying mainly Japanese nationals.
The airline says almost four hours into the flight, smoke was seen in the cockpit and moments later the right-hand cockpit window caught fire.
"There was smoke in the cockpit followed by the right-hand cockpit window actually catching fire before it was extinguished by our pilot," Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway said.
"The fire in the cockpit window area was contained only to the cockpit and no other part of the aircraft."
Mr Westaway said the pilot who extinguished the fire was "very experienced''.
"He has over 12,000 hours in flight experience - he's a 14-year pilot and he's come out of Qantas, so they're a very experienced crew on the flight,'' Mr Westaway said.
"We've advised the relative authorities , we're working with them and Qantas engineering are also working on it as well.
Mr Westaway said it was "way too early'' to speculate about what caused the cockpit fire.
"We have a very modern fleet of A330s, the aircraft in question has been in operation for less than two years,'' he said.
"Our A330 fleet are maintained by Qantas and it's last major maintenance check occurred in Australia with that aircraft.
"We are, naturally, concerned, but our most important priority is to get everybody to Australia.''
Mr Westaway said the aircraft, which was operating directly between Osaka and the Gold Coast, landed safely in Guam earlier this morning.
No passengers were injured.
Jetstar would send another A330-200 aircraft to Guam to ferry the stranded passengers to Brisbane early tomorrow morning, Mr Westaway said.
The island of Guam is a US territory, located in the Pacific Ocean about 2100 kilometres east of the Philippines.