Jetstar Melbourne to Singapore Flight Makes Emergency Landing in Darwin

22nd Dec 2015

Jetstar flight from Melbourne to Singapore had to make an unscheduled landing at Darwin Airport after the pilot noticed that one of the flight instruments was not working properly. The flight JQ7 departed Melbourne Airport at around 12:30 p.m. and landed at DIA at 4:30 p.m. local time, where it was met by emergency vehicles.

A Jetstar spokeswoman said:

"Following a brief period of turbulence, the captain of a flight from Melbourne to Singapore identified a technical fault with one of the instruments on the flight deck and opted to divert to Darwin as a precaution. Engineers will inspect it this evening before clearing it for service."

The plane will remain in Darwin until Tuesday morning most likely.

Several passengers on board were upset with the whole situation, especially that they were not told that something was wrong with the plane. They only realized something is amiss when the flight path began showing the aircraft is turning back to Australia instead of their desired destination ? Singapore.

One passenger said:

"It appeared the plane was going backwards, which didn't look right. All I heard was something about ice impairing the reliability of something on the plane."

According to this passenger, there was not much turbulence. She described it as:

"It would be really intense for a bit, then it would stop."

Another passenger commented on his experience, noting that he heard there was a problem with the sensor on the plane. He was also unhappy the aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Darwin, halfway into the journey:

"It is terrible. We are meant to be in Singapore right now, but we are stuck in Darwin. No one really told us what was going on. The turbulence wasn't that bad. I thought we could have kept going through it."

The airline is yet to reveal which flight instrument was causing problems on the fight.