• AirAsia X flight D7237 to Kuala Lumpur was forced to return to Perth, Australia on Sunday, 25 June after the pilot identified a "technical issue" with the engine.
• About an hour into the flight, passengers heard a loud bang and the plane began to shake for the entire two-hour flight back to Australia.
• This is the third major incident with a Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engine since May.
Think it's a bit of a cringe when people clap when a flight lands? Here's one circumstance when applause was totally warranted.
About an hour after AirAsia X flight D7237 had taken off for Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, the Airbus A330-300 experienced what the airline called a "technical issue" and began violently shaking for the entire two-hour flight back to Perth, Australia.
"We were asleep and heard a loud bang around the 1-hour-and-15-minute mark," passenger Damien Stevens told CNN. "It shook for the whole ride back, close on two hours."
"The pilot identified a technical issue with the engine. The plane turned around and safely landed back at Perth Airport," a spokesman for the Airport told CNN.
AirAsia X, the long-haul division of the low-cost carrier AirAsia, released a statement confirming that flight D7237 to Kuala Lumpur took off at 6:40 a.m. with 359 passengers and landed back at Perth Airport just before 10 a.m. The airline has not confirmed what caused the incident with the plane's Rolls-Royce engines.
"It was really shaky, very scary," said Stevens, who was on his way to Myanmar for a vacation with his friend Mitch Jamieson.
According to Stevens, the pilot asked the passengers to pray twice. They were also told to hold "the brace position" for about two minutes while the plane landed.
Passengers posted video to social media of the shaky flight. Instagram user maesaya wrote, "I thought I might die…"
This is the third major incident with a Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engine since May. Earlier in June, a China Eastern Airlines A330 en route to Shanghai had to return to Sydney after the engine nacelle was damaged. An EgyptAir flight from Cairo to Beijing had to abort its takeoff after a similar incident happened in May.
While the engine nacelle doesn't appear to be the issue in Air Asia incident on Sunday, a Rolls-Royce spokesman told CNN that, "We are aware of the incident and will be working closely with relevant partners to understand the cause of the issue."
Lyndsey Matthews is the Destination News Editor for AFAR; previously she was a Lifestyle Editor across all of Hearst Digital Media's brands, and a digital editor at Martha Stewart Weddings and Travel + Leisure.
