An Australian Jetstar aircraft with 203 passengers and crew made an emergency landing on the island of Guam on Thursday after a cockpit fire broke out as the aircraft flew over the Pacific Ocean.

The Airbus A330-200 aircraft was flying from Japan to Australia on Wednesday night when, four hours into the flight, smoke was seen in the cockpit and the right-hand cockpit window area caught fire.

“One of our pilots utilised an extinguisher and we conducted an emergency diversion to Guam where the aircraft landed without incident,” Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway told Australian radio. The plane touched down in the early hours of Thursday, Australian time, Jetstar said.

All passengers and crew were safe and no one had been injured, the airline said. The aircraft was only two years’ old and would be held in Guam until the cause of
the fire was established, Jetstar said.

In a survey, 63% of Australians said they thought the airline’s safety standards “have become worse over the last few years.” Jetstar was founded in 2004 with a focus on domestic routes before adding flights to Asian destinations two years later.

In another instance, a Russian airbus with 122 people on board has made an emergency landing in the western Siberian city of Novosibirsk following a crack in its windscreen, a transport police spokeswoman said.

The Aeroflot Airbus-320 aircraft, which was travelling from East Siberia’s Irkutsk to Moscow, landed safely in the city and none of its passengers or crewmembers were hurt, spokeswoman Tatyana Sherstova said.

Indian students alleged on Thursday that Lebanese youths were behind the racially-motivated attacks on them here as they took to the streets for the third consecutive night protesting against racial attacks.
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The spate of racial attacks against Indians spread to Sydney after members of the community were targeted in Melbourne.

The spate of racial attacks against Indians spread to Sydney after members of the community were targeted in Melbourne.

Scores of Indian students last night took to the streets of Harris Park in Sydney for the third consecutive night to protest racially-motivated against them by Lebanese youths.

The protesters alleged that police were ignoring their pleas for protection.

The protests came a day after prime minister Kevin Rudd warned Indian students against “vigilante action” to prevent attacks against them.

Indian protesters continue to say that they were being attacked by Lebanese youths. A man, who took part in the protest, was issued with a court notice for carrying an offensive weapon after being allegedly found with a piece of timber during a police search.

Meanwhile, Parramatta city council held a meeting with police, India’s Consul General and members of Sydney’s Indian community, with organisers saying students had agreed to stop protest rallies.

Prime minister Kevin Rudd warned Indian students on Wednesday against “vigilante action”, saying while violence in all Australian cities was “a regrettable part” of urban life, vigilante action was equally unwelcome.

Superintendent Robert Redfern expressed sympathy for the students’ concerns, but urged them not to take matters into their own hands.

“I am not a fan of vigilante groups. I am not a fan of people taking the law into their own hands. That’s our job,” Redfern said.

“The victims of crime that do occur in this area are not exclusively Indian, the perpetrators of those crimes are not exclusively Middle Eastern,” he said.

Redfern said he planned to meet with Sydney’s Indian community leaders later this week.

NSW premier Nathan Rees said a meeting with Indian leaders last week emphasised the need for everyone to keep a cool head and report any incidents to police immediately.

“Police have escalated their presence and their monitoring of the situation in that part of Sydney, but everyone is to keep calm,” he said on Wednesday.

“There is no place for violence, there is no place for this sort of antisocial behaviour in NSW or Australia.”

“What I would say is there are mechanisms in place now for appropriate dialogue to occur,” he said, adding “we’ll be in ongoing discussions with the student leaders and community leaders.”