Smoke coming from an electrical furnace forced the crew to touch down over a possible fire on board
FILE PHOTO. © Sputnik / Ilya Naymushin
A Russian flight was forced to make an emergency landing soon after takeoff because of a suspected fire on board, Russian media outlets reported on Thursday. It turned out later that the incident was caused by porridge that had been burnt in an electric furnace.
The Aeroflot flight was due to take off in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi and land in St. Petersburg.
The cabin crew alerted the captain about smoke in the passenger liner’s kitchen almost immediately after an Airbus A320 with 152 passengers onboard took off from Sochi airport. Soon after, the smoke coming from an onboard electrical furnace spread to the main cabin.
The crew quickly turned the stove off and the captain contacted air traffic control to request an immediate emergency landing at the departure airport. Emergency crews were sent to the flight strip and the porridge-hampered flight reportedly landed around ten minutes later.
It turned out that the smoke was caused by porridge getting into the furnace’s heating spiral due to the fact that its package had not been properly sealed. The affected furnace was replaced and the aircraft was cleared for operation, but passengers were left waiting some five hours for another flight.
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This week saw a number of incidents that forced passenger liners to make emergency landings.
On Wednesday, a flight from Moscow to the Russian Siberian city of Novosibirsk was forced to land due to a sick passenger on board who required hospitalization. That same day, a flight from the US to Chile had to request an emergency landing in Panama when the pilot suffered medical issues. The pilot died shortly after landing despite receiving urgent treatment.
