By Erik Jensen
JESY YOLANDA appears to have been one of the first to record the engine troubles that forced a Sydney-bound Qantas A380 to return to Singapore yesterday.
''Sorry have bed news 9.15 am waktu jakarta,'' she wrote on the micro-blogging website Twitter, ''qantas airlane from jakarta to sgpr have a accident before landing in batam.''
Just as newsrooms were starting to stir with the rumoured explosion of a Qantas plane off Indonesia, and journalists began making calls to hotels on the island of Batam, Twitter was recording thousands of versions of what might have happened. By 2pm the site was at fever pitch. The terms ''A380'' and ''Airbus'' were among the most typed words on the website.
''I was about to go to sleep, but a Qantas plane allegedly exploding/crashing over Batam?'' one user wrote. ''Can't sleep until more details come through.''
Mainstream media, including Reuters, began reporting the plane had exploded. Unconfirmed reports were tweeted over and over by other users. ''Passenger plane crashed near Batam,'' someone tweeted, to be picked up ad infinitum. ''Unconfirmed reports say that it's qantas and Singapore bound.''
Even before Qantas had responded to calls from the media, the event was being clarified on Twitter.
''QANTAS airline's plane (Singapore-Australia), exploded in the air of Batam, returned and landed safely back to Singapore. airbus 380.'' Eventually a passenger aboard the flight tweeted a picture of the damaged engine: ''Just emergency landed back in Singapore after engine two blew up at take-off and parts ripped through wings. Damn.''
A friend in Batam tweeted back a picture of the debris left on the island: ''I saw ur plane from batam, sounds like meteor fell from above. This is ur plane's part bro.''