The Springboks’ scheduled arrival  in Sydney on Saturday has been postponed.

The Qantas flight on which the team was traveling was forced to return to OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg less than two hours after take off following the overheating and failure of engine No 3 on their Boeing 747. The aircraft returned safely to Johannesburg.

The Springboks will remain in Johannesburg for the night and will not depart for Australia before Saturday.

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Several Springboks and Springbok staff members reported the incident on the social network Twitter:

Alistair Hargreaves – “@Al_Hargreaves: So Quantas have to send another aircraft which means 1 more night in jhb.

Gary Gold – @GaryGoldrugbyiq reckons he checked flames coming out the engine!”

Alistair Hargreaves – “@Al_Hargreaves: “The Springboks have just landed… In joburg. One of the engines failed and we had to turn around. Beautiful start to the trip! #hack”

Nelio De Sa – “@NelioDeSa: Springboks plane engine 3 exploded, thank God they managed to fly back to OR Tambo & and our precious Boks safely, think it’s Quantas A380”

John Smit – “@JohnSmit123: Wow,just had to do an emergency landing at OR Tambo,we lost an engine after take off but safely landed now!My second safe emergency landing!”

Ashley Johnson – @ashj1605: Back in joburg!! Our nr3 enjin exploded with a big bang!!!

Gary Gold – “@GaryGoldrugbyiq: Wish I never watched #carteblanche on the #quantas 380 incident! Our engine just blew on take off and we just returned to Jhb, not much fun!”

Sports journalist Brendan Nel, speaking to rugby writer JJ Harmse had the following to say – “@BrendenNel: Just spoke to jj harmse who was on the plane. Says it wasn’t that bad, they were on a 747 and not an A380…”

Brenden Nel – “@BrendenNel: Jj reckons it felt “like a speed bump” not too bad and they only knew when it was announced over the intercom.”

SARU has issued the following statement:

Media are advised that the Springboks’ scheduled arrival media conference in Sydney on Saturday has been postponed. An update on a revised time will be issued in due course.

The Qantas flight on which the team was traveling was forced to return to OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg less than two hours after take off following the overheating and
failure of engine No 3 on their Boeing 747. The aircraft returned safely to Johannesburg.

The Springboks will remain in Johannesburg for the night and will not depart for Australia before Saturday.

At the time of writing Qantas could not be reached for any further comment on the incident, nor could it be established whether or not it was related to other engine failures on recent Qantas flights.