Aer Lingus flight forced to turn back

[Irishboy]

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0717/aerlingus.html

An Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Chicago was forced to turn back today when a suspect package was discovered on board.
Flight EI125 was 30 minutes out from Dublin Airport when a member of the cabin crew heard a beeping noise coming from a box in an overhead bin.
The pilot decided to turn back as a precautionary measure and the plane landed at Dublin Airport at 4pm.
Passengers disembarked and security services examined the box. It contained a number of in-flight magazines. There was a ticking noise coming from a piece of medical equipment, which was stored behind the box.
The plane is due to depart for Chicago later this evening

[apaddyinuk]

Well in fairness to them they did not move the box or risk anything stupid and did the right thing by just getting back on the ground!

[mustafagander]

Marvelous CRM skills there!!

Such an event means flight deck lockdown - nobody in or out - in my part of the world, so you have to take the word of somebody. Anyway, I infinitely prefer to have the cabin crew err on the conservative side.

[preset]

Well said Musta

[apaddyinuk]

COme on everyone, just Ignore Idunno cos hes a windup merchant.
At the end of the day we all know our training and thats to NOT TOUCH anything thats unusual and could be a threat. What plane was it that had a packet of cigarettes in the locker and when a crew member picked it up the thing blew up the entire plane?

I remember not so long ago there was a few scares on my airline because crew were finding what looked like plastic explosives stuffed into the units in the lavs. It transpired after a short investigation to be a new kind of air freshner. Sounds silly on retrospect but at least the crew were being vigiliant and that is all the can be accused of.

[EI-MICK]

well if its half hour in to it's flight and heading to chicago I dont think it would enter any other airspace than Irish for quite a while so I think just a spotter is bang on.

[Just a spotter]

All joking aside for a moment ...

All joking and "points scoring" aside for a moment, one thing this incident does highlight is the increase in security issues surrounding Irish aircraft and airports over the last 12 or so months. In that period we've had one very high profile security breach at EIDW resulting in a ‘revamp’ of passenger security, one week with 3 bomb alerts at the airport (anyone else remember the permanent bomb ‘detection’ in place at the entrances in the 1980’s?) and 3 EI registered aircraft affected by hoax bomb warnings all reported in the media.

Now I'm not suggesting any conspiracy here, but could the way in which this incident was handled suggest a “jitteriness” amongst the professionals involved?

JAS

[Taildragger67]

Maybe what's actually needed here is an addition to manuals to include the possibility that the defib, stored in the bin over row X seats A & B, may emit a beeping sound to denote when its battery is low and in order to maintain operability, such battery should be changed at the earliest opportunity...

Such might've made the F/A think 'that's not a banger, that's the defib low on bettery, better tell the CCM so that it can be logged and the battery changed at ORD (or wherever)'. In the absence of which, hearing something unknown beeping apparently from an unknown box, they're free to draw other conclusions.

So no-one's fault, just something which might help in the future.

[10secondsurvey]

Apaddyinuk,

I agree with your comments on MI.

It is difficult for many docs in A&E to diagnose some heart attacks, so to me it is not surprising that CCrew can get it wrong. I don't think it reflects badly on crew, at all. And like you say they are trained to respond in a particular way, and follow a sequence of steps.

[boeingbus2002]

Originally Posted by Idunno

Did they evacuate the a/c?
Why not? Having diverted because of a bomb?

The Ryanair diverts a few months ago (to PIK I believe) also required Pax to remain on board. This was at the request of the Police.
So the reason why no pax evacuation in this case could be a similar reason, some set procedures.

As regards the issue about whether the flightcrew should have paid so much attention to the cabin crews concerns; in all decisions that are made, they are either right or wrong. In the heat of the moment and with details that have been provided, a quick calculated decision needs to be made.
If this decision was wrong....at least lives of crew and pax have not been compromised. Imagine the other scenario....what would you prefer

[RogerIrrelevant69]

I had been watching this thread with interest (admittedly with a lot more interest once Idunno kicked off - what a joker!) and was curious about one point. Take a short-haul flight where the flight deck is locked for the complete flight, if a CCM sees something dodgy, can or should a pilot leave the flight deck to verify suspect package/box/machine that goes ping/etc is dodgy? Idunno alluded to some procedure involving verification by the pilot (mind you he also alluded to the fact he was a pilot but with his inter-personal skills and previous numeric literacy problems I found this a bit hard to believe). Did he make that procedure up?

If that procedure does exist, with minimal planning by terrorists, it looks like an open door to cockpit intrusion.

[apaddyinuk]

Very good point roger.
I personally would hope that one of the crew member perhaps has a digital camera or picture phone ( I think maybe a situation like this could merit the use of a mobile phone in flight! LOL) and take a picture of the device which could then be sent up to the flight deck which may be more desirable then the flight crew having to actually leave the flight deck when it should be locked down!

[Tordan]

Just a GA pilot here, but the idea of sending a pic to the locked cockpit is a good one although I doubt that flight crew usually has much knowledge in identifying suspect devices. The upside is that two more gets a chance to say "Hey, isnīt that the whatever-thingy that is supposed to lie there?" but as long as both the CC and FC isnīt 100% sure of what they are looking at they should (in my mind as pax) sort that out on the ground. The potentially dangerous situation that might happen is that the mobile picture is sent to some sort of Ops Center per SOP and time is spent while locating someone there to try and id the thingy, while tick adds to tock...
Hope that makes sense, english isnīt my native language, lol.

[Tooloose]

Flights from Dublin to Chicago normally enter UK airspace within 10 minutes of departure from Dublin.

[TVIR40]

General feeling better to be safe than sorry! Some devices can be clever in their disguise!

[Felix Saddler]

I think the correct approach was taken and well done to the crew.
Better safe than sorry!!

[Shamrock 125]

Last I checked Tooloose UK airspace was east of the emerald isle, Chicago being a tad bit to the west and Norn Iron airspace only coming into play with the GELKI departures for the LAX bound flight with a much more northerly track

[Tooloose]

Shamrock 125, ORD flights generally use more northerly tracks than flights to BOS or JFK. You are quite right that LAX flights normally depart via GELKI and BEL. However, a reasonably typical departure for ORD from DUB would route via ERNAN, entering UK airspace at that point. Most UK airspace is, as you correctly state, to the east of DUB but there is a considerable amount of it to the north and northwest as well.

[Max Angle]

At least they made is back to Dublin instead of being helpfully "escorted" to Prestwick where they no doubt would have sat on the ground for 3 hours surrounded by the cops.

[mini]

If in doubt play safe...

better the ribbing in the crew rooms than providing CNN with food.