A passenger has described hearing a "deep metallic groan" and seeing flames streaming from a Sydney-bound Qantas jet engine after it failed and punched a hole in the metal shell around it.
QF74, carrying 212 passengers and a crew of 18, left San Francisco for Sydney at 11.05pm on Monday local time (4.05pm AEST on Tuesday), but was forced to turn around after one of its starboard engines suddenly failed soon after take-off.
Nathan Hunt said the engine failure caused the plane to "skip like a stone skimming across water".
A Qantsa jet was forced to turn back to San Francisco after a hole was blown in the shell of the engine.
"It was a deep metallic groan ... like a wailing iron ship that was sinking into the ocean," he said.
"When we all looked out the window, there were just flames coming out. We were at the back of the plane and those flames were coming back quite a distance."
Another passenger, Nolan Goldstein, told local television station KTVU-TV she "heard a thud, a bump and the plane veered off to the left".
"It was very uncertain for a period of time until the captain announced that we had an engine that blew up. It was a real uncomfortable vibration at first and then the plane began to shake a bit."
Qantas spokesman Simon Rushton said that, about 15 to 20 minutes into the flight, the crew noticed "excessive vibration" in engine No.4 of the Boeing 747-400.
"After some initial troubleshooting, they made the appropriate decision to shut the engine down," Mr Rushton said.
"They also made the appropriate decision to seek priority clearance to return to San Francisco."
The pilot dumped fuel over the Pacific as a precaution, he said.
There were no injuries during the landing, Mr Rushton said, and the plane was able to pull up to the aerobridge at the terminal so passengers could get off the plane.
Mr Hunt said the jet continued to "vibrate in weird pulses" until the last few moments of the flight.
Pilots 'train regularly' for engine failure
Mr Rushton said engine failures were "very rare events" and could not recall if similar incidents had occurred to other Qantas planes.
An aviation expert, John Nance, told the San Francisco Chronicle the incident was an "uncontained engine failure" that was "an extremely rare event".
Barry Jackson of the Australian and International Pilots Association said pilots trained regularly for engine failure.
"Engine failure is the most common occurrence that we train for. We practise it every time we go into the simulator," Mr Jackson said.
He said the captain would have followed a standard drill that involved shutting down and isolating the engine from other parts of the plane.
Dumping fuel was also necessary to get the plane's weight down to its maximum landing weight, he said.
Mr Jackson said while the four-engine jet was designed to cope with up to three engine failures, the Qantas pilots took the "most sensible and cautious approach" of turning the plane back to the US due to uncertainty about how badly damaged the engine was.
Mr Hunt said that, while most passengers remained calm, there was an audible sense of relief when it landed on the tarmac at San Francisco International Airport about 12.45am (5.45pm AEST).
Engine 'to be replaced'
Mr Rushton said the engine would be replaced and one flown up from Australia this afternoon.
"Engineers have determined the engine does need replacement, and they are checking to see what caused the problem," he said.
"We are ... dispatching a replacement engine early this afternoon to San Francisco along with a team of Qantas engineers who will also take the replacement and begin the investigations into what has happened."
All passengers were given hotel accommodation and meals, Mr Rushton said.
"We are transferring them to Los Angeles to pick up Qantas flights to Los Angeles tonight to Australia."
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US said Qantas would prepare a report for the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board.
"Whatever Qantas does is going to have to meet with our approval too," an FAA spokesman said.
"The bottom line is we want to make sure and know that that aircraft is airworthy when they are saying they want to put it back on line."
- with AP, AAP
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