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A domestic Qantas flight has turned back due to engine troubles, the third mid-air mishap in as many days for Australia's national carrier.

The QF430 flight from Melbourne to Sydney departed about 9.40am on Friday before turning around near Bonnie Doon about 10 minutes into its journey.

The Boeing 737 aircraft safely touched back down at Tullamarine Airport a short time later.

In a statement, Qantas said the plane returned to Melbourne as a precaution after the pilots were alerted to a minor engine issue.

"Customers will be reaccommodated on the next available flights over the next few hours," it said.

"The aircraft landed normally - this was not an emergency or priority landing. Both engines remained operational throughout the flight."

It comes after a Qantas service from Auckland to Sydney was forced to issue a mayday following an engine shutdown on Wednesday and another service from Sydney to Fiji on Thursday turned back over potential mechanical troubles.

Transport safety investigators have since confirmed they will analyse the Auckland to Sydney flight's cockpit voice recorder and flight data after the engine failure.

The pilot of QF144 - a Boeing 737 - shut down the engine and made a mayday call over the Pacific Ocean, before landing safe at Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport about 3.30pm.

Passengers reported turbulence on the flight but said they were unaware of a mayday alert until they landed.

© AAP 2023

Stunned park rangers on a north Queensland walking trail have discovered a mega toad weighing in at close to three kilograms.

The gigantic creature, dubbed "Toadzilla", easily eclipsed the birth weight of many newborn human babies and was found in the Conway National Park in the Whitsunday region.

The warty amphibian was 25 centimetres long and weighed in at a world record 2.7 kilograms.

According to Guinness World Records, the largest known toad was a pet called The Prince, who weighed in at 2.65kg in 1991.

Ranger Kylee Gray was part of a team conducting track work when a snake slithering across the track forced them to stop their vehicle.

As she looked down, she spotted the monster female cane toad.

"I reached down and grabbed the cane toad and couldn't believe how big and heavy it was," Ms Gray said.

"We dubbed it Toadzilla and quickly put it into a container so we could remove it from the wild.

"A cane toad that size will eat anything it can fit into its mouth and that includes insects, reptiles and small mammals."

Toadzilla was found at an elevation of 393 metres and has created a sizeable splash among rangers.

"I'm not sure how old she is, but cane toads can live up to 15 years in the wild - so this one has been around a long time," Ms Gray said.

The toad was euthanised and will be moved to the Queensland Museum.

CANE TOAD FAST FACTS

* Introduced into Queensland in 1935 to control the cane beetle

* Recognised by the Commonwealth Government as a key threatening process to the nation under the national Environment Biodiversity and Conservation Act 1999

* Obtains a large size, up to 26cm and weighing 2.5kg, but specimens of this size are rare

* Female cane toads can produce up to 30,000 eggs in a season

* Can be fatally poisonous to wildlife and have caused local extinctions of some of their predators

* The toad can be humanely euthanised by being placed in a bag or container with a secure lid in a refrigerator for a minimum of four hours to anaesthetise the toads. It can then be placed in a freezer until frozen solid - at least 24 hours.

* Authorities warn skipping the initial cooling phase could result in zombie toads with the amphibians able to survive.

Source: Queensland Department of Environment and Science

© AAP 2023

US actor Alec Baldwin faces involuntary manslaughter charges carrying prison time for the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the 2021 filming of the Rust movie in New Mexico.

Santa Fe's top prosecutor Mary Carmack-Altwies said on Thursday the film's armourer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, would also be charged with involuntary manslaughter.

She said charges would be filed by the end of this month.

Hutchins' family welcomed the announcement while Baldwin's lawyer Luke Nikas said "this decision distorts Halyna Hutchins' tragic death and represents a terrible miscarriage of justice".

The charging decision followed more than a year of investigation after a pistol was fired in October 2021 as Baldwin, 64, was rehearsing with it on the set of his movie Rust outside Santa Fe.

The movie's director, Joel Souza, was hit and wounded by the same .45-calibre bullet that killed Hutchins.

According to a police report, David Halls, the assistant director who handed the gun to Baldwin, told the actor it was "cold" - an industry term meaning it did not contain live rounds.

Halls signed a plea agreement for the charge of the negligent use of a deadly weapon, Carmack-Altwies said in her statement.

Gutierrez-Reed had handled the gun before Halls.

Prosecutors told the New York Times it was part of industry standards for actors to check guns they used were safe to handle and they should never point them at anyone.

Baldwin has pushed back at that idea, saying firearm safety was the responsibility of the armourer, first director and others.

"You should not point a gun at someone that you're not willing to shoot," Carmack-Altwies said in an interview with the New York Times on Thursday.

But prosecutors could face long odds securing a conviction, according to legal experts, who said if Baldwin was told the gun did not contain live ammunition by on-set professionals, he would not be obligated to inspect it himself.

"It's a very aggressive charging decision and the defence has a strong case," said personal injury attorney and former prosecutor Neama Rahmani, who was not involved in the Rust case.

"Accidents like this are not enough for criminal liability."

Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed will be charged "in the alternative" with two counts of manslaughter, meaning a jury will decide not only if they were guilty but under which definition of involuntary manslaughter, the prosecutor said.

Simple involuntary manslaughter for negligence is punishable by up to 18 months in jail and a $US5000 ($A7232) fine.

Should prosecutors prove there was more than simple negligence involved in the use of a firearm, they could face a mandatory five-year jail term.

Baldwin has denied responsibility for Hutchins' death and said he did not pull the trigger of the replica Pietta .45-calibre long Colt revolver.

An FBI forensic test of the revolver found it "functioned normally" and would not fire without the trigger being pulled.

"M. Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun - or anywhere on the movie set," his lawyer Nikas said.

"He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds.

"We will fight these charges, and we will win."

Brian Panish, a lawyer representing the Hutchins family, said his own investigation found charges were warranted.

The family sued Baldwin in 2021, alleging he had a responsibility to check the gun did not contain live rounds, not point it at the cinematographer and not cock the weapon and pull the trigger.

The family subsequently reached a settlement in which Matt Hutchins became an executive producer of Rust.

Production of the film was set to resume early in 2023 outside New Mexico.

© RAW 2023