Engine blast grounds Qantas jet

The incident occurred less than 10 minutes into the QF1820 flight from Perth to Newman, a major mining hub in Western Australia's Pilbara region.

The Boeing 717 flight had departed at 5.40am with 116 passengers, many of whom were fly-in, fly-out mine workers.

Passenger Timothy Willigan told 6PR radio he heard a "nice big bang" shortly after the Boeing 717 took off.

"We were still climbing," he said. "I was 14 seats away from the engine ... she let go all right, gave everyone a bit of a fright.

"Initially it was a bit of a rush of blood. But there was a second engine so we're all good."

Miner Tim Williams told the ABC the plane had just begun to level out after take-off when the captain told passengers they had experienced a problem with the left engine and would be returning to Perth.

"Shortly after take-off we did experience a bit of a bang. We heard it and felt it as well, and not long after that we dropped a little bit in altitude," he said.

"We did notice a little bit of instability in the plane in the flight."

Mr Williams said the plane's take-off seemed normal, but he said the subsequent drop in altitude caused concern among passengers and cabin crew.

"There was quite an uneasy reaction. Everyone sort of stopped what they were doing, had a look around, thought about it for a second and tried to be calm," he said.

"Just to watch ([he crew] was a bit worrying, to see them fumbling themselves, not knowing what to do, but they were quite calm and handled it well."

He said a member of the cabin crew let passengers know what had happened, but "you could hear she was a bit shaky".

"At first, I didn't realise what had happened, but as we dropped in altitude I knew what was going on," the mining worker said.

"I was a bit worried, a bit scared, had a little prayer in my head and that was it. It was out of my hands, there was nothing I could do."

Many of the mine workers on board were headed to BHP Billiton's Mount Whaleback mine, the biggest single open-cut iron ore mine in the world.

A Qantas spokeswoman said the engine was shut down before the aircraft was safely returned to Perth.

A fan blade failure is suspected to be the cause of the problem. She said the engine would most likely need to be replaced.

A new flight has been arranged and was due to leave at 12.45pm.

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