Jetstar A330 in emergency landing after cockpit fire

Posted: 11 June 2009 0845 hrs

SYDNEY - An Australian flight was forced to make an emergency landing on a remote Pacific island Thursday, just days after an Air France tragedy involving the same model of Airbus plane, officials said.

The budget flight from Japan landed on Guam after a fire broke out in the cockpit, company officials said.

Smoke and then flames were seen near a cockpit window about four hours into Jetstar flight JQ20 from Osaka to Australia's Gold Coast, prompting flight crew to scramble to douse the fire before landing on Guam.

Nobody was hurt among the 203 mostly Japanese passengers and crew travelling on the Airbus A330-200, which touched down at about 2:20 am (1620 GMT Wednesday) and they were sent to nearby hotels.

The incident involves the same model of aircraft as the Air France disaster on June 1 when all 228 on board an A330 flying from Brazil were killed after a mystery accident over the Atlantic.

"It is understood there was smoke in the cockpit followed by the right hand cockpit window area catching fire before being extinguished by technical crew," a Jetstar statement said.

"The cockpit window fire was contained to the cockpit only of the aircraft before it was extinguished."

Australian officials were flying to Guam to probe the fire while Jetstar, operated by flag-carrier Qantas, was sending another A330 from Sydney to pick up the passengers and crew.

"A team of investigators... will travel to Guam this morning to commence the investigation," the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement.

One aviation expert said early suspicions would focus on a short-circuit in the window's heating system.

"These sorts of things just aren't supposed to happen. They will want to know why it happened," Geoffrey Thomas, senior editor of Air Transport World, told Sky News.

"It's exactly the same model as the Air France one, although different manufacturers provide different parts for these aircraft."

Airbus has stressed the safety of its A330s after the Air France tragedy, in which investigators believe an air-speed sensor fault may have caused the pilot either to fly too slow and stall, or too fast, ripping the plane's body apart.

Qantas this week said it had no plans to replace the air-speed sensors on its A330s as they are made by a different manufacturer.

It rejected any link between the Air France accident and October's mishap when a Qantas A330 went into two sudden and steep dives over Western Australia, causing several serious injuries and prompting an emergency landing.

- AFP/ir

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Fire forces Australia jet to land (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Cockpit fire forces plane to make emergency landing (telegraph.co.uk)

A330-200: Ultra-modern and extremely safe

June 1, 2009 -- Updated 1639 GMT (0039 HKT)

Story Highlights

• The Airbus A330-200 was launched in 1995
  
• There are 600 currently in service with 82 airlines, including Air France
  
• Expert: A330-200 is reliable, ultra-modern, state-of-the-art airplane
  
• Air France said Flight AF 447 reported electrical problems
  

The incident involves an Air France Airbus A330-200.

(CNN) -- Launched in 1995, the Airbus A330-200 is the newest member of the European aircraft manufacturer's twinjet family.

With a range of 12,500 km (6,750 nautical miles) and the capacity to carry 253 passengers, the A330-200 is extremely well-regarded as a medium to long-range airliner.

There are 600 currently in service with 82 airlines, including Air France, worldwide.

Airbus has a further 300 orders for the aircraft.

According to aviation expert Kieran Daly, the A330-200 is a "reliable, ultra-modern, state-of-the-art airplane," with an impeccable safety record.

He told CNN that there has only been one reported incident when an aircraft of this type has crashed.

"The incident took place in 1994 before the aircraft came into service," he said. "It was being flown in test-mode by pilots who were putting it through some extreme maneuvers before it came down.

"Therefore the crash was not caused by the plane itself.

"It is very well-designed and well-equipped, with equally modern and reliable General Electric CF-6 engines."

Air France has said that Flight AF 447 sent an automatic signal indicating electrical problems while going through strong turbulence early in its 11-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

However, Daly said that it would take extremely violent weather conditions to cause the catastrophic failure of an aircraft of this size.

"These planes are extremely robust and widely used on transatlantic routes and across Asia," he said.

"They are equipped with an array of sophisticated communication equipment, so it must have been something extremely sudden to cause the loss of contact."

There has also been speculation that the Paris-bound flight was struck by lightning, but that should not bring down a modern airliner, former Airbus pilot John Wiley told CNN.

According to Air France, the captain of Flight AF 447 had a record of 11,000 flight hours and had already flown 1,700 hours on Airbus A330/A340 aircraft. Of the two first officers, one had flown 3,000 flight hours (800 of which on the Airbus A330/A340) and the other 6,600 (2,600 on the Airbus A330/A340).

The aircraft had totaled 18,870 flight hours and went into service on 18 April 2005. Its last maintenance check in the hangar took place on 16 April 2009.

The larger A330-300 aircraft from Airbus entered service in 1993 and has a capacity of up to 335 passengers. It too has an impressive safety record, despite a couple of incidents in the last 10 years.

In August 2001, a Canadian airliner operated by Air Transat experienced double engine failure while traveling to Portugal. Miraculously the captain was able to perform an emergency landing in the Azores by gliding the powerless plane for almost 18 minutes.

Last year, an A330-303 was forced to make an emergency landing in Australia after a sudden change in altitude injured 74 passengers. Qantas Flight 72 was flying from Singapore to the western Australian city of Perth when a sudden change of altitude caused abrasions, contusions, fractures and other injuries. The cause of the sudden drop remains under investigation.

From CNN.com; see the source article here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• A330-200: Ultra-modern and extremely safe (cnn.com)
• A Past Flight May Offer Clues to Air France 447 (time.com)
• An in-depth review as Search continues; Missing Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330 Jet (ceoworld.biz)
• Air France plane lost: the Airbus 330200 (telegraph.co.uk)
• Missing Air France jet hit strong turbulence: officials (cbc.ca)
• 228 on missing Air France jet (thestar.com)
• Timeline of the disappearance of Air France flight 447 (seattlepi.com)
• French air crash: Race to find black boxes from Air France flight (telegraph.co.uk)
• Canadian aboard missing Air France jetliner (ctv.ca)
• Britons feared dead on Air France jet (guardian.co.uk)