Cathay diverts to Novosibirsk

[Adam Nams]

Story here:


Cathay Pacific flight makes emergency landing in Russia after fire alarm activated on board | South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/2048616/cathay-pacific-flight-makes-emergency-landing)



A Cathay Pacific flight carrying 230 passengers and crew from London to Hong Kong was forced to divert to Russia on Wednesday morning after its fire indicator signal was activated.
The incident happened about six hours after the Boejing 777-300ER aircraft departed from London at about 2am on Wednesday.

The flight was diverted to Russia due to the activation of an alert on the flight deck that could have signalled a fire in the aft cargo hold, according to the company.
“At this time, there is no evidence that there was a fire,” Cathay Pacific said in a statement.
It mentioned that the safety of the passengers and crew was top priority.
The flight landed safely at Novosibirsk International Airport in Russia, according to the airline.
“There was no report of injury to the 212 passengers or 18 crew on board,” Cathay Pacific added.
A spokeswoman said the airline was working to fly the passengers and crew to Hong Kong as soon as possible.

[cathaychap]

“We are now in a hotel in the city waiting for a new plane to arrive from Hong Kong. The Cathay Pacific staff has done a great job,” the passenger said.


CX2551 has left HKG, carrying replacement crew, to collect pax and crew from OVB.

[Globally Challenged]

That will by why I couldn't get any rooms in the OVB Marriott for tomorrow then.

[cockpitvisit]

Very nice of Russians to let passengers use a hotel.

Had this happened in the EU, pax without visas would likely be stuck in the airport transit area.

Quite ironic that "civilized" countries have the most uncivilized way of treating transit passengers during irrops.

[atakacs]

You have a point but I'm pretty sure it would have been quite similar in the US...

[captplaystation]

That will be the same Russia that insists on crew from a certain EU airline holding a Russian Visa (even for turnarounds ) and on filling their passport with stamps, resulting in the need to renew after a very short time . . . . . . . . :mad:

[Herod]

What, nobody going to explain what the crew did wrong, and how by doing something else (as advocated by the poster) they would have had a better result? What is Pprune coming to?

[RAT 5]

What, nobody going to explain what the crew did wrong,

What ever happened to the Flight Engineer opening up the floor carpet, opening the hatch and descending into the bowels of the a/c to 'investigate'?
Oh, I forgot, Henry, Tom, George were bumped decades ago. I guess the odd false warning is little to pay for their demise. I also guess the F/O's have had an easier time of it since.
1 v 1 is easier to cope with in CRM PC days than 2 v 1 in the Stone-age days. :)

Well done to all.

[BalusKaptan]

Oh nick off.
Crew had a fire warning. You as a passenger expect top level of safety. Crew also expect themselves to be ultra safe. Fire warning en-route, 18 minutes to be on ground/ditching or you may be toast.
Boeing figures indictate that 1 in 200 fire warnings are genuine, so what do you do??
Only possibility is a ditching/forced landing in inhospitable terrain or enroute available airport. Then unless I've unarguable evidence that I'm on fire I'll continue to a suitable enroute airport rather than ditch, possible many kms from land, but if an enroute airport is available then I'll land ASAP.
Why the aggro over this latest incident?
There can be multiple events like this in this day and age of twin engine operations where it can be alleged the Crew did/did't do what was appropriate but normally, as in this case, they did the appropriate actions. Just imagine, had the fire warning been genuine yet ignored by the crew and then they attempted to continued to their destination and then fallen apart?
This Crew took the correct and appropriate action of putting the aircraft and it's occupants on the ground in a safe and expiditious manner in a rapid response to the situation.
Well done.
We bitch about the on going degradation of the Cathay in-flight service yet the one thing that we as Tech Crew can do is provide a second to none Proffesionaly
competnt flight Crew that though they are behind the scenes, provide Crews on any particular flight that are second to none in todays environment.

[Mr Angry from Purley]

Had this happened in the EU, pax without visas would likely be stuck in the airport transit area

Lets face it not too many of the punters would have done a bunk in the middle of no-where in Russia

[WingNut60]

Oh nick off.........Crew had a fire warning. You as a passenger expect top level of safety. ...........etc, etc

Well done Herod and Rat5, you got him.

BalusKaptan .... unless I missed a tweet and it has since been deleted by mods, I think you may have the stick by the wrong end.
I'm just not seeing any criticism of anyone or anything for once.

[Herod]

Thanks WingNut60. You got my point. I will now take my tongue out of my cheek, since it's so easy to be misunderstood

[Flexable]

What would be the cost to install close circuit camera with infrared capabilty to visually confirm the presence of smoke or heat source?

[peekay4]

The cargo hold is usually packed with containers from floor to ceiling (illustrated in the cross-section mockup below). There's only an inch or two of clearance on top, at most, and a camera's view would be very limited / obstructed by the containers. It would be very difficult for pilots to see anything between the gaps, under the best of conditions.

There have been video-based systems proposed in the past, having multiple near-infrared cameras to automatically detect / verify fires using sophisticated computer vision algorithms (instead of relying on human eyes). But to my knowledge none of these systems have been certified for use on passenger aircraft.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/Lufthansa_mock-up_cargo_bay.jpg/640px-Lufthansa_mock-up_cargo_bay.jpg

[CargoOne]

Lets face it not too many of the punters would have done a bunk in the middle of no-where in Russia
As a quick reference this middle of nowhere place would qualify as a second largest UK city in terms of population ;) and home base of OneWorld carrier S7 too - I suspect it was them who helped CX to sort out pax as OVB is not an online destination for CX thus no staff on ground.

[lomapaseo]

There have been video-based systems proposed in the past, having multiple near-infrared cameras to automatically detect / verify fires using sophisticated computer vision algorithms (instead of relying on human eyes). But to my knowledge none of these systems have been certified for use on passenger aircraft.


Certified to work as intended and not to malfunction and cause a greater problem with false alerts nor catching fire themselves

[Captain Dart]

Very interesting photo, thanks peekay.

[5 APUs captain]

I wouldn't say "no-where"...
UNNT (Novosibirsk) has 1.5 million of population, 2 RWs (both 3600 m) and CATII.
Good choice in an emergency!

[CargoOne]

Meanwhile Asiana B772 flight OZ521 just diverted to HMA - Khanty Mansysk, Russia. This will be much more entertaining compared to Novosibirsk or Irkutsk if reports on the engine problem are correct.

[5 APUs captain]

2 CargoOne:

Yeapp.... Small city about 100 000 of population, RW 2800 m.
All PAX stay in a hotel without permission to leave (no visas). As it is minus 24 outside..... should have a reason to leave the hotel!