Damaged Air New Zealand 777 returns to Auckland at low altitude

On May 22nd, an Air New Zealand Boeing 777-300er was damaged after it collided with an airbridge while pushing back at Brisbane Airport.

An Air New Zealand Boeing 777-300er similar to the aircraft involved | Photo: Noah Stohr-Waldren

The aircraft involved was 14 year old Boeing 777-300er, ZK-OKN.

It arrived in Brisbane on Thursday morning as scheduled but had an issue when pushing back for its return flight to Auckland. The forward section of the aircraft hit an airbridge, leaving behind a roughly seven centimetre wide hole in the aircrafts fuselage just below the captains window.

As a result, the aircraft required a full inspection and so the flight was canceled and passengers were de-boarded and rebooked on later flights.

Three days later on May 25th, the aircraft returned to Auckland unpressurised at a low altitude of 10,000 feet as NZ6000. The repositioning flight had no passengers or cargo onboard.

ZK-OKN, the jet involved, was already scheduled to fly to Singapore on Wednesday next week for routine maintenance so any additional ground time will not cause further disruption to passengers.