Smoking electronics stop Qantas flight

A Qantas Boeing 747 has returned to service after an electrical fault caused smoke to enter its cockpit.

(Sparks image by Grace Kat, CC BY-SA 2.0)

The airline did not reveal the source of the problem that caused the plane, which had been en route to Argentina, to return to Sydney. It said the faults have been repaired.

"The faults have been fixed and the aircraft is back in service," Qantas said, adding that the fault can be described as minor.

The plane was airborne for about two hours with its 200 passengers before returning to Sydney on priority landing.

Qantas hasn't been the only airline to experience problems with electrical panels. This week a Boeing 787 Dreamliner was forced to land after an electrical fault ignited an insulation blanket, pushing the company to consider ditching the US trial flights of the new aircraft.

The Qantas incident has been the latest in a string of issues for the airline.

On Friday, a Melbourne-bound Boeing 767 was forced to turn back to Perth with 230 passengers after vibrations were detected in its engines, and earlier a Qantas Sydney-bound Boeing 747 returned to Singapore due to engine problems after take-off.

On 4 November, an engine coupling of an A380 superjumbo broke apart mid-air over Indonesia, triggering Qantas to ground its six remaining double-decker planes.