Virgin Boeing 737 destined for Port Hedland diverted back to Perth amid ‘technical issue’ mid-air

A Virgin Boeing 737 destined for Port Hedland has been diverted back to Perth amid reports of a “technical issue” mid-air.

A Perth Airport spokeswoman confirmed flight VA1845 was scheduled to return to Perth after leaving the runway destined for Port Hedland on Tuesday afternoon.

The Boeing 737-8FE was seen circling above Perth’s northern suburbs around 5.15pm following reports of a “technical issue”.

It is believed the landing gear failed to retract and was fixed mid-air, but the crew was advised to return to Perth for safety checks.

The plane was destined to arrive at Port Hedland about 5.30pm but instead landed at Perth Airport about the same time.

BHP FIFO worker Didier Peroomal said he could tell something was wrong by the tone of the pilot’s voice over the loudspeaker.

“The pilot said that they were having some technical issues with possibly the opening mechanism of the wheel,” he said.

“They said they were going to contact control to see if they had engineers in Port Hedland to have a look at it but if not they would turn around back to Perth.

“There was a little bit of turbulence but nothing major, it seemed like a normal flight.”

Mr Peroomal said it was his fourth flight disruption this week.

“When I heard that I sort of looked out the window and thought, we’ve been flying for 15 to 20 minutes, we should be further than that,” he said.

Other FIFO workers said Virgin was working to arrange a pilot to put workers on another flight on Wednesday morning.

It comes as Boeing faces intense scrutiny over several quality and manufacturing flaws on its planes, including a major incident on January 5 when a door plug blew out of a near new Boeing 737 Max just nine minutes into an Alaska Airlines flight.

The Virgin Australia operated plane is a Boeing 737-800, a version of the 737 plane preceding the now-embattled 737 Max.