Investigators are working out how to recover a propeller found in bushland southwest of Sydney after it fell off a Regional Express flight.
The 100-kilogram propeller, which sheared off Friday's Rex flight from Albury to Sydney, was spotted on Tuesday in the Georges River National Park in Revesby from a police helicopter.
It was located about 18 kilometres from the airport after the Australian Transport Safety Bureau calculated its likely trajectory using data from the aircraft's flight data recorder.
Police officers established a crime scene and will guard the propeller overnight before it's recovered on Wednesday.
Investigators are assessing how best to pick up and then transport the bulky item.
Regional Express's bad luck continued on Tuesday afternoon when a flight bound for Griffith was forced to return to Sydney Airport with cabin pressure problems.
The airline has temporarily grounded five planes "through an abundance of caution" while it replaces gear boxes and shafts from the same series as the propeller which detached on Friday.
Two are freight services while the other three Saab 340s operate on the Melbourne and Sydney networks.
The maintenance is expected to cause only minor delays over the next two days, a spokeswoman told AAP.
During Friday's flight, the crew shut down the right-hand engine following "abnormal indications" with the pilot "feathering" the propeller to reduce drag.
It was at this point that the propeller assembly separated and rotated upwards and to the right of the aircraft - luckily avoiding contact with the plane which was carrying 16 passengers and three crew.
The flight landed safely at Sydney Airport.
The only other recorded similar event was in 1991 when US carrier Comair's aircraft also landed safely after losing a propeller.
An investigation into that incident found the likely cause was "a fatigue fracture of the propeller shaft" which originated in the material used to manufacture the shaft.
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