A contender for dumbest piece of journalistic 'writing' for the year:
Fuel leak forces emergency landing for QantasLink plane at Hobart International Airport | The Mercury
A FUEL leak forced a Qantas plane to make a dramatic landing at Hobart International Airport last night.
Specialist aviation firefighting trucks surrounded the Boeing 717 aircraft after it landed and turned at the end of the runway and taxied back to the terminal just after 8.30pm.
A QantasLink spokeswoman could not confirm how many passengers were on board Flight QF1507 from Melbourne, but said the aircraft holds 110 passengers.
Hobart man Paul Strommer and his wife were on the Jetstar JQ711 flight from Melbourne which landed just before the Qantas plane and witnessed the event.
“We pulled up extremely quickly,” Mr Strommer said. The Jetstar pilot reversed thrust very heavily to stop the plane before moving off the runway and out of the way of the Qantas flight, he said.
“The pilot apologised to the passengers for the fast pull up saying we were asked to get off the runway.
“It was pretty spectacular.”
The QantasLink spokeswoman said the pilot was alerted by a flashing fuel light and said the jet experienced a minor fuel leak towards the end of the flight.
“The flight landed safely at Hobart Airport and our engineers are currently assessing the aircraft.
“As a standard precaution, the airport fire authorities monitored the aircraft as it landed. The aircraft is expected to return to service tomorrow morning.”
Engineers were examining the aircraft to determine the cause of the flashing fuel light.
The spokeswoman said the pilot had requested priority landing when the light started flashing. A priority landing request is made when a plane needs to land ahead of all other aircraft.
Passengers on the Jetstar flight were moved off the runway in record time to make room for the emergency.