AirTran flight from MCO diverts to RDU after smelling smoke

[dbaker]

An AirTran flight that departed from Orlando International Airport Friday was forced to make an emergency landing while on its way to Philadelphia.

The aircraft landed safely at Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina after the pilot reported smelling smoke in the cockpit, WESH NewsChannel 2 reported.

Full (Limited) Story

[haze]

Hey chicken little, as everybody already knows these things do happen:

Continental Flight Makes Emergency Landing In Alaska
Jet Bound For Houston From Tokyo Experience Engine Trouble

POSTED: 11:32 am CDT October 20, 2004
UPDATED: 11:41 am CDT October 20, 2004

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A Continental Airlines jet bound for Houston from Tokyo experienced engine trouble and was forced to make an emergency landing Tuesday in Cold Bay.

Flight 6, a two-engine Boeing 777 carrying 241 passengers and at least 15 crewmembers, landed just after 4 a.m. at Cold Bay's airport, according to Gordon Bliss, an operations officer with the Federal Aviation Administration. No injuries were reported.

"They were having problems with one engine, so they shut that one down and put the plane down before anything got worse," Bliss said.

Continental spokesman David Messing said pilots on the flight received warning of reduced oil pressure in one of the engines, which was shut down as a precaution. Procedure then called for the plane to be diverted to the nearest airport, he said.

Cold Bay is a community of 95 located 642 miles southwest of Anchorag.

The passengers were being taken to Cold Bay's community center and school and were brought food and drink by residents, said Karen Montoya, public affairs officer for the Aleutians East Borough.

A replacement jet was to be flown from New York to pick up the passengers, Bliss said.

The flight took off from Tokyo at 3:31 p.m., Messing said. It landed at Cold Bay at 4:07 a.m. Alaska time.

Cold Bay has a 10,000-foot runway capable of landing large jets. It was built by the military during World War II and is the fifth-largest runway in the state, Montoya said.

In 2001, Delta Flight 79 carrying 220 passengers and crew from Los Angeles to Tokyo also made an emergency landing at Cold Bay.

Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[haze]

Not even the first time this year a Continental 777 flying Tokyo-Houston had an emergency landing. Interestingly enough, it was an engine spewing oil. Wonder if it was the same engine on the same aircraft that caused both emergency landings. Well now, that would represent a pattern wouldn't it? Uh oh, Continental

LATEST NEWS
January 8, 2004
Continental emergency landing: how passengers reacted
Some people were scared and others found it an entertaining diversion when Continental Airlines Flight 6, bound from Tokyo to Houston, was forced to land at Midway atoll this week.


The Houston Chronicle interviewed some of the 279 passengers (44 more than the airline originally said) on their return to Texas about the episode that occurred Tuesday in the middle of the Pacific.

Passengers told the newspaper that oil was "spewing" from an engine as the Boeing 777 landed on Midway's comparatively short runway. They were not able to get off the plane for hours because a ladder had to be found, one passenger said.

The Chronicle was told, however, that passengers were allowed to tour the Midway Atoll wildlife refuge, an experience many of them enjoyed a lot.

Midway airport is scheduled for closure at the end of this month. But with airports already closed at Wake atoll and Johnston atoll, the U.S. Department of Transportation is asking Congress for funds to keep the Midway field open so airlines have an emergency landing location.



© 2004 American City Business Journals Inc.

[haze]

Speaking of diverted flights out of Orlando. Coincidentally, Continental's emergency landing was in Philadelphia

Jetliner Makes Emergency Landing
October 12, 2004 — A jetliner made an emergency landing Tuesday night at Philadelphia International Airport.
Continental Airlines flight 36 was bound from Orlando to Newark, New Jersey when it developed engine trouble.

The pilot landed safely and none of the 148 passengers onboard was hurt.

(Copyright 2004 by Action News. All Rights Reserved.)

[haze]

Boy, now I would just flat out avoid Continental Airline's Houston/Tokyo route altogether after reading this one. What started out as a jab at dbaker on my part does appear to have turned into a pattern of very dangerous engine problems on that particular Continental route. Three times in a single year, mind you! It's O.K. though dbaker, these things do happen. But I'd avoid Continental's Houston/Tokyo route at all costs if I were you

This from a frequent flier's review of Continental Airlines on the epinions.com message board. This particular frequent flier is from dbaker's hometown of Austin TX nonetheless. Apparently that makes you an expert

..."For those looking for my worst experience, it was Houston-Tokyo in 2003. We took off on time on a packed plane for a 13 hour flight. As we took off, it smelled a bit like burned wires but that soon dissipated. 90 minutes later, over Amarillo, we turned back to Houston because of the burning smell, all the while being assured that there was no danger. When I looked out the window, long trails of smoke were emanating from the wings. I rang the call button three times to ask about this before someone came. I was told it was normal. Condensation, vapor, or other type of congealed humidity. I was positive it was not as that type of moisture goes OVER the wings, not OUT OF them! I was pretty panicked. The captain later came on and said that they were dumping fuel as the plane would otherwise be "too heavy" to land back in Houston. Heavy? Damn! That same plane got off the ground with all that weight so how could it not land minus at least 180 minutes worth of fuel? Anyway, the flight attendant came back and asked if I "felt better" now that the captain told us what was really going on. Well, I didn't feel better because the attendant had earlier lied to me about the smoke emanating from the wings. She was not amused. So... back safely in Houston. We were put on another plane and despite this rather harrowing experience, the captain came on to tell us to thank the cabin crew for staying around as they could simply have gone home given the now 3 hour delay. That, to me, was a bit of a slap in the face as I, too, could have just gone home given the "fire", the smoke, the emergency landing, etc. Anyway... it gets better. Once in the air, the plane was not catered for 13 hours of flight so we were served a cup of instant noodles on take off and then nothing until 11 hours later. When I protested 8 hours into the flight that I was hungry, I was told that I was not and they went to "look for" a sandwich. They found one and then told me that I was a complainer. The crew sat in the back of the plane, not offering water, or anything, acting rather above it all. On landing in Tokyo - 6 hours late (given the minor "fire" of course) - the crew actually asked us to thank them... wow, was I piqued"...

[haze]

Glad I could be of help, dbaker. Any time you need to put the whole story out there, you just let me know

[trs717]

Man...this CAL passenger cracks me up.
"How can plane take off and not be able to land due to weight?"

Very simple. If anyone cares, all airplanes are designed to take off at a lot higher weight then they can land at. Landing is simply more demanding on a landing gear assembly than a takeoff. AirTran 717 takeoff weight is 120,000 and landing is 104,000. In wide body jets that spread is a lot wider because of all that fuel they burn in cruise. So in order to make an emergency landing shortly after take off a fuel dump is installed on those airplanes. It dumps fuel into the atmosphere in a form of a fine mist. It evaporates very quickly prior to reaching ground. Now 717 is certified to land at 110,000, however AirTran didn't pay for that option since landings over 104,000 are never required. Airplane can still land over weight in an emergency situation, in which maintenance personnel will simply inspect the landing gear.

[B717mech]

Just to set the record straight. This plane in RDU ther was never smoke or burning. Here is what happened. A galley trashcan was repaired with PRC. This is the stuff used to seal fuel tanks, the prc hadn't set up all the way and was emiiting vapors this is what the crew smelled, and for saftey landed in rdu..

[jetmech717]

Its passengers like the one on the CAL flight that think they know what their talking about that spread bad info. If the wings were collecting vapor then the trail would come out the bottom of the wings not the top, but since the Capt said that they were dumping fuel then that explains it coming "out" the wing tip. TRS717 explained the landing weight info perfectly, and B717mech already explained the 717 galley smell.

[dbaker]

I have many times taken CO6/7, NRT-IAH/IAH-NRT and it is my preferred route to Asia. I was on CO7 IAH-NRT the day that the aircraft serving the route diverted in January (earlier that morning) on the way back from NRT. Since that is the function of ETOPS, it wasn't a large issue although my flight to NRT was late due to the late arrival at IAH of the replacement aircraft, so I missed my connection at NRT as a result.

If you check even more carefully, this is not the 2nd time this year that CO6/7 diverted but the 3rd. The same aircraft returned to IAH after losing oil pressure in an engine although I'm not sure if it's the same one that was repaired in Midway. It definitely is interesting and brings question to ETOPS, but the discussion is more relevant for another forum and using it as a distraction from the AirTran issue is apparent.

As far as the passenger who didn't know about MGTOW/MGLW/etc I think it's pathetic and ridiculous to mock him. I'm sure there's plenty of things that he knows about that you don't and we can hope that he'd be more respectful in sharing things without "cracking up."