An Air New Zealand (ANZ) flight bound for Christchurch was forced to reject it’s takeoff from Queenstown due to a bird strike on the roll.
More information has been released pertinent to this incident, which we will get into in this article.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
ANZ Flight NZ654 Queenstown-Christchurch…
Air New Zealand flight NZ654 is a routine scheduled flight between Queenstown and Christchurch.
The aircraft involved in the bird strike incident was ZK-OXG.
As per data from Planespotters.net, ZK-OXG is a 9.3 year old Airbus A320ceo that was delivered to the airline in February 2015.
Of the A320ceo variant, ANZ has 17 of them in the fleet.
Furthermore, of that 17, all but one are in active service, with an average fleet age of 10.4 years.
Reporting from The Aviation Herald details the chain of events that took place with NZ654 Queenstown-Christchurch.
It is understood the crew on the Airbus A320 rejected their takeoff at around 80 knots due to hitting a bird.
From there, the aircraft taxiied back to the gate, where damage was assessed.
What happened afterwards was a stroke of unfortunate luck for the passengers.
The aircraft was cleared to taxi back out to the runway after about an hour but needed to return to the gate again due to a technical problem.
Furthermore, the flight was cancelled as a result of this.
Aircraft Grounded Overnight…
Data from RadarBox shows that the ANZ Airbus A320 originally bound for Christchurch from Queenstown was grounded overnight.
It is understood the second time they turned back to the apron was due to a unrelated warning light.
On May 27, the aircraft was able to finally perform the flight under the NZ644 flight number.
Since then, the aircraft has operated flights to the following destinations:
- Christchurch
- Wellington
- Auckland
No additional issues have been reported since the aircraft’s re-entry to commercial service.
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