Volcanic ash chokes Singapore jet’s engines

Press, 15 July 1982, Page 9

Volcanic ash chokes Singapore jet’s engines

NZPA-Reuter Jakarta A Singapore Airlines Boeing 747 jet has made an emergency landing at Jakarta with only two of its four engines working after flying into a huge cloud of dust and ash from an erupting volcano. It was the second neardisaster to a Boeing 747' caused by the volcano in less than a month. On June 24 a British Airways jumbo suffered a total engine failure when volcanic ash' over west Java choked its engines. That plane, bound for Perth, plunged in silence for 13 minutes and 24.600 feet before the crew managed to restart three of the engines. It made an emergency landing at Jakarta.

The Singapore -Airlines captain. Nicholas Evans, said yesterday that his aircraft, which had taken off from Singapore late on Tuesday evening bound for Melbourne. had flown into choking volcanic debris at. 36,000 feet about 160 km from Jakarta. ‘‘We had some complications but we made a successful emergency landing on two engines at Jakarta," he said. Singapore Airlines officials declined to comment on the incident until they had consulted their head office but an airline source said: “It is a miracle the plane made it down safely. The fact that everyone is safe is a real tribute to the pilots.” The flight, which had

originated in London, was carrying 230 passengers and 21 crew.

A pilot from another main airline, who asked not to be identified, said that the clouds of ash from the volcano, Galunggung, 170 km south-east of Jakarta, were a serious menance to aircraft passing over Java to Australia. He said that the incidents involving ■ the Singaporean plane and the British Airways jumbo had occurred at night when volcanic clouds could not be detected by pilots either visually or by radar until it was too late. The 2168-metre, Galunggung, one of Indonesia’s 149 active volcanoes, has been spewing out ash. rocks and lava since April. About 20 people have been killed by the eruptions and more than 30.000 have fled their homes around the peak’s densleypopulated and fertile lower slopes. l-