Our flight to New Zealand
left LA on Tuesday evening and everything went smoothly. That was until about
10 minutes after takeoff we all felt this huge jolt, which was like when you
drive over something in the road. Everyone looked a bit worried and you could
feel the nerves in the air but after 30 seconds everyone forgot and carried on
with their own business. About 20 minutes later the captain told us that there
had been a problem with the engine and so we were going to have to return to
LAX, but would have to spend an hour dumping fuel first. What he did not tell
us was that the engine had exploded!!! Luckily I had put my window shutter
down, if I had seen the fireball I would have totally freaked out! We were told
later that a rotor blade had come loose and caused the damage. Least I can
vouch now for the fact that planes can actually run with only one engine
working. I tried to bury myself in my book to make time go faster otherwise I
think it would have been the longest hour in my life. It was such a relief when
we finally came into land and made it down safely. We had fire engines
following us and everything.
Qantas put us up at a Hilton hotel for the night which was
very nice and we were given food vouchers for the day to use in the hotel
restaurant which was really nice so at least we got something from it. Though
we weren’t given our bags back which was a pain, and I think I must have stank.
I will now always take a spare pair of pants in my hand luggage whenever I take
a plane, just incase. We were put on an Air New Zealand flight the next night
so only ended up losing one day in NZ. This was definitely a life experience
that I could have missed.
