Jetstar A330 catches fire, makes emergency landing in Guam

An Airbus A330-200 aircraft operated by Jetstar, the fully owned budget subsidiary of Australian airline Qantas, has made an emergency landing in Guam after the aircraft caught fire.

JQ20 was on route to the Gold Coast (Australia) from Osaka, Japan when the pilots spotted flames in the right hand side cockpit window. The crew extinguished the flames with an onboard fire extinguisher, and issued a may-day call.

The plane, carrying 202 people including the crew, landed safely at Guam International Airport at 2:20am local time Thursday morning.

At a press conference in Christchurch, New Zealand, Jetstar’s CEO said that the aircraft was two years old, and had been serviced by Qantas Engineering in Australia. The last point is notable locally given previous suggestions that Qantas aircraft with problems in the past had received sub-standard servicing in Asia. He also noted that aircraft had automatically notified the airline that there had been a failure in the on-board heating systems immediately prior to the emergency being declared.

The incident follows the loss of an Air France A330 over the Atlantic Ocean June 1.