A hero Qantas pilot who saved 440 passengers when his superjumbo's engine exploded in mid-air has revealed how a "picture-book" day turned to terror.
Captain Richard de Crespigny was about to turn off the seatbelt sign on Flight QF32 when he heard a "relatively small" boom just four minutes after takeoff.
A second later, he heard an enormous boom that was unlike anything he'd ever heard before - and suddenly found himself in a life-or-death emergency.
As he and his colleagues carried out urgent checklists, a trail of smoke, flames and debris filled the sky and terrified passengers feared they might die.
Some, who had been watching the takeoff on the plane's in-flight video, looked on in horror as pieces of the "disintegrated" engine were blown away.
The blast left wires exposed and "short bursts of flames" shooting through the air.
Inside the cockpit, Capt de Crespigny desperately battled to save the lives of those onboard the 464-tonne aircraft - while repeatedly reassuring passengers.
He and his colleagues spent two hours in the air assessing the plane's damage and carefully planning their landing, the pilot writes in a new book, FLY! .
This included how far along the runway the aircraft would stop.
They discovered it would come to a halt only 139m short of the end of it - and, in the event of overunning it, there would be "disastrous consequences".
A paddock, an access road, sand dunes and ocean were beyond the runway - so Capt de Crespigny needed to pull up quickly enough, according to the book.
The flight, from London's Heathrow Airport to Sydney Airport, Australia, had taken off from Singapore's Changi Airport for the second leg of the journey.
The engine blew at 10.01am and the plane stopped on the runway at 11.46am.
Remarkably, all of the passengers and the 29 crew members onboard survived the emergency on November 4, 2010, with no reports of any injuries.
One Brit later said: "When we got off and saw the engine itself and the back casing burnt off, that was pretty scary. I'm just happy to be alive."
In a captivating extract of his book, published by news.com.au, Capt De Crespigny details the moments before and after the horrifying engine explosion.
An experienced pilot who loved his job, he says he experienced a "perfect" takeoff, with the aircraft's four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines 'roaring' into life.
However, things soon turned disastrous.
"As we passed 6,000 feet it really was looking like a picture-book day," he says.
"We climbed up through 7400 feet and at 10.01 I was about to turn off the seatbelt sign when we heard a relatively small boom, followed one second later by a huge BOOM! which was like nothing I’d ever heard before."
He goes on to describe how a ‘stub pipe’ - which "had not been manufactured to the correct specifications" - inside engine two had fractured.
Oil had leaked out into the engine, resulting in a fire, according to the book.
Shockingly, the "boom" sound had come from hundreds of bits of shrapnel shooting through the engine, as its computers increased the fuel flow.
For the next two hours, the crew worked on landing the Airbus A380 safely back at the same airport, knowing they would inevitably come in too fast and heavy.
They would also have a broken wing and little roll control.
After deciding to carry out 'control checks', Capt de Crespigny began the landing - while "SPEED!" and, later "STALL!" sounded from the plane's computers.
When the plane finally touched down and came to a stop - 3900m along the runway - it was met by fire crews who hosed its "white-hot" brakes with water.
The pilot describes in the book how he was unable at one point to turn off engine one - which kept running despite several attempts to kill it.
It was only hours later that it could be eventually stopped,
By this time, shaken passengers, who had been kept calm by the cabin crew, had been able to safely disembark the aircraft down some stairs.
Some later spoke out about their ordeal.
As reported by the Mirror at the time, Briton Mike Tooke was watching the in-flight footage of the takeoff, shot from the tail plane, when the engine exploded.
He said: "Suddenly there was a loud bang and a puff of white smoke from one of the left-hand engines. Everyone let out a very large gasp, we all knew something had gone terribly wrong.
"There was quite a lot of vibration as soon as the engine had pretty much disintegrated. We could see parts of the engine had blown away."
Other fliers recalled how the aircraft 'vibrated' in the skies above Indonesia.
Passenger Matt Hewitt, from Cheshire, said: "There were smoke trails running from the wing. Some people saw the actual breakage of the wing.
"There were parts sticking up and wires hanging out."
Another passenger added that she thought “this was the end”.
As the emergency unfolded, Capt De Crespigny was reported to have calmly told people onboard the plane: "I'm sure you realise there's a problem.
"We have to find out what the problem is."
He later successfully made the emergency landing back at Changi.
According to the QF32 website, the pilot views the incident as "the greatest challenge of my life" which "tested every one of my skills".
He said there was a "remarkable team effort by over one thousand people".
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce praised the crew at the time.
He said: "They were calm. They train for this sort of event.
"We have the best trained pilots in the world."
Capt De Crespigny's new book, released today, examines the strategies and techniques behind crisis management, CEO Magazine reports.
It is aimed at anyone "who wants to build their confidence and courage and fortify their resilience to survive the unthinkable events".
- FLY! Life Lessons From The Cockpit Of QF32, by Richard de Crespigny, is available now from retailers and as an ebook and vbook