Emergency:pia Airbus 300 On Fire

[SV_741_India_Bravo]

PIA Plane Catches Fire, Passengers Safe
M. Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Arab News

RIYADH, 9 September 2004 — A Pakistan International Airlines plane bound for Riyadh with 229 people on board caught fire after taking off from Lahore airport in eastern Pakistan.

“PIA’s flight No. PK-643 made an emergency landing after one of its engines caught fire,” said an official statement released by the airline. All passengers were safe, it added.

The aircraft, carrying 214 passengers and 15 crew members, took off for Riyadh from Lahore late Monday, and after 10 minutes of flying the engine caught fire due to some technical fault, Nasrullah Khan, the PIA spokesman, said in the statement. Local PIA officials confirmed the report. They said that the passengers bound for Riyadh deplaned shortly after the emergency landing and alternate arrangements were made to fly them to Riyadh.

The statement said that no injuries or major damage was reported. The passengers boarded another plane, which landed at Riyadh’s King Khaled International Airport several hours late on Tuesday.

Local PIA officials refused to share more information, saying only senior PIA executives based in Jeddah were authorized to speak to the media. Arab News could not reach them despite repeated attempts.

Good Work PIA
Glad All Passengers are safe

[Cejkovice]

PIA seem to have been having a few incidents recently, anyone know what is going on???

[lasernigel]

According to their web site PK-643 does not exist as a flight number.So is any info true?

[Biggles Flies Undone]

It's an A-300 and several reports cite the same flight number.

[Cyrano]

lasernigel: according to the PIA website, PK 743 is the Monday night Lahore-Riyadh flight. Looks like a typo in the original source...?

[SV_741_India_Bravo]

Hi,
Cyrano I think youre right the flight was 743.
Also all the flight numbers between Pakistan and Saudia ,regardless of the carrier,start with 7.

I am just glad that the pilots did a good job.The runway,by the way,has 'Posh' Lahore on one sides,and farmers on the other.
I think the plane must have landed from the 'Posh' side,since the route is usually that way......
Hats off to PIA


Cejkovice,
Can you elaborate what incidents?


Here is some more info:

Flight PK 743 took off from Lahore Airport at 9.20pm Monday. Soon afterwards, one of its engines caught fire. This was noticed by people living in localities near the airport. Some of them reported the incident to the control tower and some to newspapers.

Meanwhile, flight engineer and pilot Capt Nusrat had contacted the control room, which directed them to land back immediately, after which emergency was declared on the runway. The aircraft landed successfully at 9.38 pm.

The passengers were sent to Riyadh on PK-404 that came from Karachi late at night.

I wonder what the relatives of the passengers were thinking at Riyadh.

[ou Trek dronkie]

DFQ

Cejkovice,

Can you tell us the intention of your post please ? A gentle stir maybe ???

You wanna give some facts maybe ?

Or maybe not ?

Just wondering.

oTd

[TURIN]

I think he is refering to the 4 or 5 brake/wheel fires that have occurred recently on the 777 fleet.

[Cejkovice]

I wasn't trying to stir things up, just wanting to find out some more info.

Turin is right that there have been several brake fires on B777 I think. Was apparently due to too much of the wrong grease being used during assembly of the wheels.

Was there engine troubles recently too?

Nose tyre failures that eventually caused an A300 to be written off.

A Runway over-run too.

Just seems to be quite a bit recently and was wondering if anyone has any further info on any of the above or any other incidents?

[simonjwt]

cejkovice,

Sometimes it's the simplest answers...

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group...ty_030886.hcsp

In this case: Axle Grease!

[Buster Hyman]

the engine caught fire due to some technical fault

Okay, relax people, they've ruled out spontaneous combustion here!