AC34 in trouble
 

this can't be good

Air Canada plane on fire over Sydney | The Australian

"
The report says Flight AC34 experienced a fire in the galley which couldn't be contained, with the Boeing 777-233LR now dumping fuel over Hornsby and Longreef."

couldn't be contained......

AC34 has landed safely according to Sky News.

yes the couldn't be contained was the worrying bit

Landed safely at Sydney according to 7 News Sydney

AC34 landed at YSSY safely at 1210 local time.

thank heaven for that!

Hi Folks,

Well done the Crew (all of them) & good to see the a/c made a safe return to terra firma.

I'm not in any way pointing the finger at all, but yet again we see reports of fuel dumping in this instance. Did not Swisair 111 God Bless them all, do the same thing & unfortunately possibly let that become the major issue at the expence of a very speedy landing?

This is purely a sperate thought of mine & in the Air Canada case & all other similar cases, I like most of us was not there & can thus only give my own view, which others fair enough may not agree with.

Would you agree however, that in the event of any fire & or smoke anywhere inside the aircraft, the first & main priority is a speedy & immediate landing at the nearest suitable airfield & that fuel dumping & any other actions, while good if they can be accompolished, must take second place behind, placing the aircraft on the ground? If this means an overweight landing, so be it!

Again, good to see a safe outcome to this incident & good on the Crew.

Although it was before my time, I work the airspace in which SwissAir 111 went down.

It's always been an accident in the forefront of my profession, considering I work with the controllers who worked the flight.

That being said, SwissAir 111 if they had headed directly for final on 05 in Halifax would have according to the timing, likely ended crashing in or near the city of Halifax itself.

Report from Channel 9 news: Air Canada plane lands safely in Sydney

Some extracts:
"Air Canada reported smoke in the cabin and conducted a fuel dump," the ATSB spokesman told AAP.
He said the incident would be investigated further.
A spokesman for Sydney Airport told AAP said the plane was doing an "air return".
"It's doing an air return... an air return usually means they are coming back as a precaution," he said on Thursday.
Air Canada's general manager for Australia and New Zealand, Jeannie Foster, said there was smoke in the plane but no fire.
"There was some smoke seen in the cabin by the crew, actually it was coming from the oven," she told Macquarie Radio.
"It was just smoke coming from an oven, there were no injuries."
There were 264 passengers on board the flight, including four infants.
"The captain didn't declare an emergency," Ms Foster said.
"Obviously he has had to dump fuel as it is a 15 hour flight to Canada... and you can't land with a heavy plane."

You can if the situation deems it necessary, Ms Foster. All that is required is an engineering inspection as you landed overweight with maintenance as needed.

Great news for a change, congratulations to the flight crew involved! :D

It would appear that there is more to the story than what was reported. Smoke in the galley happens on a regular basis, usually from food residue left inside one of the ovens after improper cleaning. Once the source is identified, this should not be a cause for a return. However if the smoke is suspected to be electrical and comes from outside the ovens, then wasting time with a fuel dump does not seem to be a prudent course of action.

One scenario where the crew action would be logical is an identified electrical fault that was fixed by pulling a circuit breaker, leaving the aircraft without a functioning galley (and possibly other systems), not something one wishes to cope with on a 14 hour flight.

Man, I sure wish that I had the crystal ball that so many PPRuNers seem to have on the day after an incident occurs. :rolleyes:

From the ATSB Twitter feed:

atsbinfo ATSB
Air Canada flight returns to Sydney after smoke from food in galley oven. ATSB not investigating.

Air Canada spokesperson stated pilot did not declare an emergency.

As happens all too often.. the crew is praised/criticised according to the outcome rather than for acting according to the information they had available to them at the time.
Someone once said that "Pilot error can be defined as what, 14 experts, after an 18 month investigation state what the crew should have done when the crew themselves had 1 minute to think about it"

60.000kgs dumped, pretty expensive drop.

Apperently there wasn't more to it after all. I would really be interested to hear the discussion while having tea...

I personally witnessed three smoke in galley events, both pre and post 111, in all cases the cause was readily identified as food residue, discontinuation of flight was never contemplated. Purser went on PA to explain to pax and on we went.

You are right in saying that fuel dumping shouldn't be used as a delaying action in case of an inflight emergency.

However, it might never be wrong to start dumping immediatly while heading back on a straight line. There is no need to go into a holding for losing some fuel. In fact, we haven't heard that this crew did.

It also might be worth a thought to go below the max landing weight as soon as you get trustful information from the cabin that the smoke or fire is out. In this case, you could avoid the overweight landing inspection, the hot brakes, the burst tires aso. It looks like they did a very short ground time for the second try, so they maybe did it this way.

btw was it the same crew that departed again? How about duty times?

Dani

Air Canada Internal Fire / Smoke
 

CDN ATC

Thanks for your post, I take & understand what you say, must have been a terrifying time for those poor folk on board & also of course very difficult & stressfull for your colleagues in ATC.

I spent 30 years plus crossing the pond & at all times felt very comfortable indeed & knew we were in good hands when speaking with Gander, Moncton etc.

K76