I would have loved to have been on that flight. Nice bird, diverted to NFFN, stuck there overnight (comp’ed by QFA), then fly on to YSSY… doesn’t get any better than that! 
Best of all, the guy made it through.
BL.
What’s a standard flight time from LAX to Sydney and at what point did this break it up…? It does sound pretty sweet.
When I last flew that leg (ANZ1), it was 14h 35m in a B744. Not sure what our cruise altitude was because while I was in to air travel, I wasn’t in to aviation at that time. So 10h 35m would be about right. NFFN is slightly further east than New Zealand, and on my KLAX-NZAA-YMML run some 14 years ago, it was 10h 45m from KLAX-NZAA, so that would make the time just about right. And depending on how many people were on that flight, only another A380 or B744 could accommodate.
BL.
I read a bit about this over on a.net and the info over there said there was an A330 mech for one of the carriers there (can’t remember right now…not enough coffee) any way the warning light didn’t clear when the QF mechs were talking him through the issue on the phone…
that would be right. The Age reported that there was an A330 mechanic there (interesting in itself, as from what I can find, there are no airlines with the A330 in their fleet making scheduled runs to NFFN; QFA used to make runs there but I don’t believe it was with the A330, as the B737/A320-size jets have the range to make it there). Closest would be Tahiti.
BL.
He might of just been rated for a A330 but primarily works on A320s or whatever flies into Fiji.
A first hand account of the layover from A-net. The leg in question is at the bottom of the report.