Passenger felt 'major jolt' on Qantas flight before mayday call

The flight from Auckland landed safely at Sydney Airport yesterday after issuing a “mayday” call.

Passenger Nigel Morris told Today there was a “major jolt” and that the plane’s performance noticeably changed.

“We dropped from about 36,000 feet to 20,000 feet over the course of about 40 minutes and the air speed slowed noticeably, so it was evident there was something wrong, but none of us were sure what,” he said.

“There were no announcements mid flight. The first we were alerted to it was about 10 minutes out when they made the announcements about preparing the cabin for landing.”

At that point, he said, the pilot announced the plane had “lost some functions” with one of the engines.

“I think I feel sorry for the people on the ground who knew about it because my wife was one of them, so when we landed and the cabin crew said, ‘You can turn on your phones’, I turned mine on and there were lots of messages and calls from Kath saying, ‘Oh, my God, what’s happening?'” Morris said.

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It was when he checked the news websites that Morris realised the plane had resorted to sending out a mayday call.

“Personally, I would have liked a little bit of knowledge,” he said.

“I’m not sure I wanted to know there was a mayday call because for the general public I think mayday means something pretty dramatic but a little bit of information probably would have been helpful.”

Morris praised the pilots and crew for doing a “great job” and making sure the passengers landed safely.