Bird’s feather sticks on smoke detector, causes 3.5-hour delay
Wednesday, July 16, 2014, 22:30 GMT+7
A flight of Jetstar Pacific Airlines (JP) on Wednesday was delayed for three hours and a half after the smoke detector in its cargo compartment released a warning to the aircraft’s computer
Specifically, the warning alarm indicating smoke in the compartment was issue after the BL800 flight, scheduled to leave Tan Son Nhat Airport in the Ho Chi Minh City on 2:30 pm for Hanoi, prepared to take off.
Shortly after that, the captain turned on the automatic fire extinguishing system in the compartment in accordance with the safety handling procedures and returned the aircraft to the airport’s testing facility.
All the passengers on flight 800 BL were then asked to returned to waiting area.
During the test, the engineers discovered feathers sticking to the sensor of the smoke detector in the cargo compartment, leading to the false smoke warning.
After checking to ensure safety and implementation of all relevant procedures, the airplane departed at 6:00 pm.
JP’s representative said the airplane was equipped with many kinds of detectors for high temperature and smoke. They will send the warning to the airplane’ computer immediately after detecting something unusual happening on many parts of the aircraft so that the captain can handle the case to ensure safety.
This incident also led to the delay of many other flights on the same day.
Earlier, on Tuesday evening, VietJetAir (VJA) also delayed a flight as a female passenger asked to leave the airplane when it prepared to take off on 20:08 pm.
The incident occurred on flight VJ 8681 in which passenger Nguyen Hong Nhat, sitting in seat number 5B, requested for the leave for personal reason. The aircraft had to return to the apron so that the female passenger can get off. VJA recorded the case and informed it to the airport authorities and the security center of Noi Bai Airport.
The security center of the airport then worked with Nhat to know that she had to go home for a family matter. Nhat was allowed to go but will be summoned to give more detail for her decision later.
The return to the apron and the finding of Nhat’s caused a 50-minute delay and also affected the next flights. VJA said 12 flights were then postponed from 20 minutes to 2 hours.
