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| AIR NEW ZEALAND BOEING 787-9 ZK-NZQ (MSN 39296) |
When passengers boarded Air New Zealand's flight 2 bound for New York (JFK/KJFK) from Auckland (AKL/NZAA) last Thursday, little did they know that it was going to become a return flight.
The Air New Zealand Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner had departed Auckland 35 minutes late at 20.18, bound for New York JFK International Airport.
The flight was well underway and had been cruising over the Pacific Ocean for 7 hours 30 minutes when it was forced to make an unscheduled turnaround and return to Auckland.
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The reason for the rebound flight was a power outage suffered at John F Kennedy Airport. The airport announced via social media channels that a fire in its Terminal 1 facility had rendered the airport unable to process inbound or outbound flights.
The airport stated that: “The power outage was caused by an electrical panel failure, which also caused a small, isolated fire overnight that was immediately extinguished.”
The fire may well have been immediately extinguished, however the anguish for passengers aboard NZ2 was not so immediate, with the aircraft making a marathon round-trip of just over 16 hours by the time it returned to Auckland.
The Washington Post has reported that several other inbound international flights suffered a similar fate, with flights from Seoul, Rome and Milan being forced to make a return to their departure airports.
Other flights were subsequently diverted to alternative US airports. The question naturally arose as to why the New Zealand flag carrier could not simply divert flight NZ2 in a similar manner to a US alternate.
According to the Washington Post, the airline stated that a diversion to an alternate airport would have been “too disruptive for the carrier’s operations.”
Aircraft Information:
Airline: Air New Zealand
Code: NZ/ANZ
Aircraft: Boeing 787-9
Registration: ZK-NZQ
Serial Number: 39296
Engine: 2 x RR TRENT 1000
First Flew: 5th September 2018
Age: 4 Yrs. 5 Mts
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