A Qantas flight from Darwin to Alice Springs has been forced to return for "engineering reasons" after spending more than an hour in the air.
Qantas confirmed flight QF1960 took off from Darwin airport on Friday afternoon bound for Alice Springs at 4.15pm before landing back in Darwin about 6pm.
According to an online flight tracker, the plane circled over waters above the Northern Territory about a dozen times before touching down again.
A passenger on-board, John Boffa, said although it was quickly obvious something had gone wrong, it was some time before the pilot made an announcement.
"I'd say, well into the flight, almost half an hour, the pilot did say 'look, there's been an issue, a warning light went on,'" he said.
"He didn't give any more details, but because of that we're going to have to return to Darwin and the plane would have to circle and unload fuel.
"I definitely think the delay in telling people what was going on created an element of stress."
Passengers were then transferred to another waiting plane, and made it to Alice Springs with a delay of around two hours and 30 minutes.
Mr Boffa said he spoke to a pilot after the plane landed who told him the issue had been with the plane's undercarriage.
"The issue was that the undercarriage after take-off did not automatically retract, and so they had to manually retract the undercarriage," he said.
"But the problem then was they didn't have the mechanics in Alice Springs to repair the undercarriage, and the plane would have got stuck there."
Qantas has not confirmed the exact nature of the issue, but said the plane was turned around for "engineering reasons".
Qantas denies increase in plane turn backs
Mr Boffa said there had recently been a change in the quality service to regional areas.
"It does seem, talking to people, that there's more and more incidents where these planes that we've got now are having to turn around or not able to fly or delayed for hours while repairs are done," Mr Boffa said.
"Given that we're paying such exorbitant prices for airfares now, I think we've got a right to expect a reliable service and not these sorts of frequent delays."
In response, Qantas referred to comments made by chief executive Alan Joyce earlier this month regarding plane turn backs.
"These have received a huge amount of attention because we had several in quick succession, but despite the hype, they are actually a symptom of strong safety systems," Mr Joyce said.
"Our pilots always err on the side of caution because that's what we train them to do. If an onboard system isn't working the way it should, they will often decide to land rather than pressing on to the destination."
Mr Joyce said there had been no increase in the rate of turn backs since before the pandemic.
This is the latest in a series of incidents where Qantas flights have been forced to turn back in recent months, including a flight from Adelaide to Perth which was forced to return midair due to incomplete paperwork.
