Condor squawks 7700 mid Atlantic
 

FR24 showingCondor flight DE 2116 Frankfurt to Mexico squawked 7700 mid-Atlantic and staggered back to Shannon. No furthe info available as at 21.20 GMT.

A330, operated by Thomas Cook UK.

"staggered back" or simply diverted?

Wouldn't sell as many newspapers. :O

Root cause?
 

Any aviation chaps out there have any ideas on what could cause enough smoke to convince the pilot to go 7700 and yet not leave any trace of ignition or combustion after landing? One presumes that an experienced pilot can distinguish between particulate smoke and vapour condensation.

Plenty of electronics components will emit smoke as they fail, but once they burn out the symptoms will stop. Most of these failures will not result in any visible flames, and the failed component would only be evident after disassembly. The smell is a dead giveaway though...

Almost 900 miles out in the Atlantic - Then takes 2 hours to get back to SNN - not nice at all when you are smelling burning...120 Mins of ETOPS would be quite enough for me.

Last time I checked, 120 mins = 2 hours, or don't they teach that in pilot school anymore.
And like above what has ETOPS got to do with it, that only comes in when there is need to shut down an engine.

Ttfn

He is probably refering to the fact that ETOPS nowadays would allow you to be far further than "just" two hours away from any suitable landing strip with a sick bird on your hands. Something to ponder on a long night over the Pacific...

Etops brain Fart
Do please excuse me it was 6am

ETOPS has plenty to do with it. If they weren't ETOPS they'd have been closer to a diversion and it would have taken much less time to get back to one.

So for those of us who fly non-ETOPS across the Atlantic, what happens to us? :E

(Clue: there's no requirement for me to fly the non-ETOPS route or be anywhere near an airfield)

I understood that ETOPs had become ERangeOPs, EROPs. Now applicable rules to all aircraft irrespective of number of engines.

Long time ago, was riding one of our 76-3er from Europa to Vancouver. After the beautiful sights of "Green"land and a little chat with Thule we started to get light fumes in the cockpit, visible and smelled it. Wasn't too bad but almost 2 hours from our alternate Yellowknife it required some attention:) After some troubleshooting including killing the power to the galleys, our Purser had been informed and the 1st class gal came back with the info that there was a rattling noise under the galley floor at door 1R. In concert with ops we decided to switch the avionics cooling into override I believe. FA came back and reported the noise to be gone. We checked the galley and the floor, no smoke no heat and the fumes in the cockpit disappeared. We decided to continue to YYC but ready to divert to Yellowknife(they have a McDonalds there that provided dinner for another 76 of ours that diverted there because of an engine fire), or Edmonton further down the line if needed. We choose YYC not just because it was our destination but also the weather being VMC all the way down, unlike Yellowknife and Edmonton. We were aware that the avionics were cooled by diff pressure now and that at lower altitude it wouldn't work as well, resulting in possible loss of all our glass instruments etc. Briefed the arrival into YYC extensively and were prepared to fly the bird on the stby instr. After an uneventful descent/approach and enjoying the beautiful scenery the glass panels were starting to fade out and completely fail in the flare. They found the avionics fan bearing completely torn up, next day new fan and back home.(We bought the FA who brought our attention to the noise under the galley floor a nice little gift :)

There's no smoke without fire old chap!

Smoke in the cockpit/airplane? Every second and I mean second counts, time to put the airplane on the ground pronto. self-diagnosing severity has shown in the past terrible outcomes that quite possibly could have been averted had this rule been applied, false alarm? A damned small price to pay, 2 hours out? I'd be sh*tting myself.

Having had smoke in the Atlantic (at low level) I can assure you it's not fun and not something you dick about with. In my case it was a windshield heating controller which I eventually found but when there are only two flight crew and no access to some of the equipment bays then the sound and airman like decision is to land immediately at the nearest suitable. And use all your skills to make immediately as soon as it can possibly be.

^^^^^^^^^WORD^^^^^^^^!

Happily, in my forty or so years flying, I never had the problem, but uncontrolled fire in the air was always my most worrying point. Most other things you can sort out, but.... the least hint of smoke/fire, get the thing on the ground. Good decision