Phuket Air - passenger action.
 

BBC News 24 are talking about passenger "panic" grounding a Phuket Air flight after 3 "attempts to take off" .

A few online sources have the strory:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Fri...?oneclick=true

So was there really a leak or is it just a case of letting everyone calm down?

Memetic, your link requires registration. This is the same story

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4348203

And this one from The Telegraph on-line:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/04/wplane04.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/04/04/ixworld.html

Doens't really matter what it was, if that many pax saw something, they needed to be advised what the situation was by a knowledgeable crew member...good for them they "stood up" for themselves

Is this a new procedure we haven't been informed of yet?....."burning off excess fuel" - literally!! :mad:

There once was a Jumbo from Phuket,
Which spilt fuel like a leaky old bucket,
The company liar,
Said it hadn't caught fire,
But the passengers jibbed and said "fancy that"!

BBC Online has the article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4407767.stm

Jordan

Picture on BBC TV this am shows ex-KLM B743.

Could this just have been fuel venting from the tank vent system - just as it is designed to do when the cold fuel warms up?

After all, your average non-aviator eyewitness is a pretty unreliable source of info in these cases. Any kind of vapour is usually "smoke".

As for "won't get back on the aeroplane" - it's funny how the same people will get back in their cars after they have been fixed!

this was on the front page of the Gulf-News this morning....'different' viewpoint etc etc Ha ! Ha !

Gulf News - 4/4/05

Fuel leak stalls airline's onward journey to UK

By Sunita Menon, Staff Reporter

Dubai: What could have been a major air incident has been averted after a passenger who saw fuel gushing from one of the wings alerted the cabin crew.

A Phuket Airlines Boeing 747-300 with 358 passengers on board was on its way to Gatwick Airport in London from Bangkok. It landed at Sharjah International Airport for refuelling at 3.30am yesterday.

"They overfilled the fuel tank," said Matthew Cripps, a British passenger.

"As a result, steps were taken to remove the excess fuel. Finally, when we thought that everything had been settled and that we would finally take off, I saw fuel gushing out on to the runway. It looked as if someone had turned a tap on.

"I told the stewardess: 'This aircraft can't take off'. To which she replied: 'It was normal'. I just told her: 'No, lady, this does not normally happen'. Then one of the flight engineers came over and sat near where I was. When he saw what was happening his face went white."

All passengers on board the aircraft, which is at least 15 years old, disembarked and were taken to the airport transit lounge and later checked into five hotels in Sharjah.

"There was a technical problem," said Fidol Puangsuwan, assistant special manager, Phuket Airlines.

"When we realised there was a fuel leak we immediately ordered the pilot not to take off. We are still investigating why this happened. The pilot was not able to detect the fuel leakage because it did not show up in the cockpit system. We are not sure when we will be able to take off," he said.

"There is a regular Bangkok to London flight tomorrow, but we are trying our best to arrange for an emergency extra flight for today. For that we need to get permission from India to fly over their air space. The airline is covering the food and accommodation expenses for all the passengers," he said.

Spilled and pooled fuel for any reason, near running engines is very unsafe.

Not a very big deal in the air as it is on the ground.

Also a problem on the ground for any following aircraft if not cleaned up.

Airplanes do leak fuel, like this BA 777:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3939455.stm

Latest reports say that it was a damp morning and that the fuel swirled off both wingtips in a spiral.....

Remember hearing that a Phuket 747 was checked over at LGW early on in their longhaul life because the whole operation looked a little unprofessional. A shabby substitute aircraft turned up and the loading wasn't satisfactory amongst other things.

They're pulling BKK-LGW anyway at the end of this month in favour of AMS it seems. Not sure how long they'll last longhaul...

I saw a Ceefax report this evening which suggested that Phuket Air is threatening to sue passengers for causing a panic!

M.O.L. part of their management team?

That should look good in court. The defence of refusing to allow the airline to kill them would appear a sound basis for their actions.

There's a couple of things that'll cause fuel venting on the 74 classic, one is on refuel, cold fuel into the tanks (especially the reserves that will be full) will expand in the heat and vent, another is someone pulling the vol fill fuse (and forgetting to refit it:hmm: ) to get round a tank shutting off early, and the other is a broken vent float valve in one of the tanks allowing fuel into the vent system and from there into the surge tank and overboard.

I think that AMS will be in addition to their LGW service, I am told by some friends who work as cabin crew for Phuket....As for what happened who really knows apart from to say that pax do not always make the most reliable witnesses.

There does seem to have been something wrong, because I guess that it is unlikely the flight would have been cancelled/delayed just on the basis of unsubstantiated passenger action. Anybody know who does their engineering in either UAE or Gatwick..I guess the only way to tie this one down will be for someone who has access to the tech log to share its contents with us.

View from the ground:

Definately no more LGW services in Summer 2005 from 26th April onwards. Theres talk of them returning in Winter 05 but can't see it happening.

(edited to mention LGW in the text!)

Thanks for that No Comment...is that quite a recent development?they did not mention that last time I saw them in LGW...guess that will mean a trip to AMS to see my friends...no bad thing, give me AMS over Crawley anytime :D