Aer Lingus plane diverted to Canada

[airbourne]

From the RTE website:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0416/aerlingus.html

303 Aer Lingus passengers and 12 crew are stranded after flight EI124 from Chicago to Shannon, via Dublin, was forced to divert to an airport in Canada.

The diversion happened after a smell of burning plastic was noticed on board the Airbus A330-300 aircraft, a little over three and a half hours into the flight, which departed Chicago at 1am Irish time this morning.

The captain took the decision to make an emergency landing, and the aircraft landed safely in Goose Bay in Labrador at around 4.50am Irish time.



A technical difficulty has been identified on board the aircraft which necessitates repair, and the aircraft has been grounded in the meantime.

Engineers and spare parts were sent from Ireland to Goose Bay on board the 12.00pm Aer Lingus flight to Boston this afternoon, which will land temporarily at Goose Bay to facilitate the drop off.

Director of Operations at Aer Lingus, Dick Butler, said the passengers were never in any danger, and the diversion was purely routine and precautionary under the circumstances.

He added that the passengers had been accommodated in hotels in the area, and its hoped the flight will arrive in Dublin at 8.00am Monday

As a result of the original aircraft not arriving into Ireland from Chicago, Aer Lingus has been forced to cancel EI136 from Dublin to Boston this afternoon.

However, all outbound passengers on the flight have been accommodated on other services to the US.

Flights out of the US are unaffected, Mr Butler said.

On a sidenote, one particular A330 seems to be going tech a lot lately. I wonder was this the concerned a/c.

[airbourne]

EI 1128 arrived at 0801 according to Aer Rianta website.

[Shamjet]

Sounds quite serious.. .burning plastic.!!!
Those old A330s are on their knees already.
Reads to me like the Pilots did a great job too.

SJ

[snaga]

Shamjet, do you normally make such significant deductions based on such little, second-hand, information? (You know, like "serious", "on their knees" and "a great job"?).

[old,not bold]

Aer Lingus A330 crew had a good reason to suspect a problem of unknown magnitude; acted swiftly and effectively to minimise any risk to passengers, crew and aircraft by landing as soon as possible. Perfect. Good job, well done. Airline industry, and all who depend on it, benefit enormously because passengers see that safety is paramount. Just like BA with the fire warning, landing at URA or wherever.

And then some plonker tells the press it was just routine. No it wasn't; it was very non-routine. This sort of thing happens very, very infrequently, but when an unsafe situation does arise the crew unhesitatingly take swift and effective action to ensure a safe outcome for passengers and crew, by virtue of their training and experience. That's what people want to know; they're not stupid, and they understand that things can go wrong.
The kind of crass, script-driven spokesman-speak garbage, (to paraphrase: "nothing really went wrong, the Captain just felt like landing there, probably wanted a wee") that the Director of Ops is quoted as spouting gets us all a bad name. But perhaps it was a misquote or a partial one. In which case I take it all back! Happens to all of us.

Well done, anyway, to all concerned.

[Silver Tongued Cavalier]

Yeah, the EI A330's are some of the oldest around and definately the highest cycled due to the Shannon stopover policy. They certainly look very tatty in the cabin now.

I reckon its gonna be a summer of tech aircraft, hire ins and disgruntled pax!!! They have Zero spare capacity and flexability.

[Bearcat]

we're back to the old jumbo days again....the a330's are tired. Unusally snags. Recent one in AGP was a flap gearbox assembly snag.

[EI-EIO]

it was a cabin air recirc fan that had failed and caused the problem.all sorted now:ok: