A jetliner taking 468 people from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia made an emergency landing due to an engine fire, the Garuda Indonesia airline said, in the latest incident in the archipelago’s poor safety record.
The Indonesian flag carrier said the Garuda-1105 flight to Madinah – operated by a Boeing 747-400 – returned to its original airport in the Indonesian city of Makassar at 17.15 local time with all passengers unhurt.
“The decision was made by the Pilot in Command immediately after takeoff, considering engine problems that required further examination after sparks of fire were observed in one of the engines,” said Garuda president director Irfan Setiaputra in a statement.
There were 450 passengers and 18 crew members on the flight, Irfan said, including pilgrims for the haj, the days-long Muslim pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
They were all redirected to accommodations before boarding a replacement flight later on Wednesday to Saudi Arabia.
Footage posted on social media, which has not been verified by AFP, purported to show the plane’s engine catching fire as it took off.
The plane was grounded for a safety probe, Irfan said.
The airline, 60% owned by the Indonesian state, suffered massive losses during the Covid-19 pandemic, grounding the majority of its fleet over travel restrictions and declining demand and laying off hundreds of employees.
The South-East Asian archipelago relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands but has suffered a string of deadly plane crashes in recent years.
Its grim aviation record includes a crash in 2021 in which a Sriwijaya Air Boeing passenger jet mysteriously plunged into the Java sea after take-off from capital Jakarta, killing all 62 people on board.
In March Indonesia’s transport ministry said it had opened a probe into local airline Batik Air after two of its pilots were found to have fallen asleep during a flight. — AFP
