Smoke smell in cabin forces pilots to make an emergency landing
A plane en route from Manchester to Belfast with 89 passengers was forced to make a emergency diversion to the Isle of Man after crew reported that they could smell smoke in the aircraft cockpit.
The aircraft, an Embraer 195, made an emergency descent into the island airport as a precautionary measure, landing at 1.17pm yesterday. On landing all passengers were disembarked as quickly as possible, with four suffering minor injuries in the process.
The plane had been serviced in Exeter.
A spokeswoman for the Exeter-based Flybe said: “The likely cause of the incident seems to be a failure of the air conditioning and circulation system.”
Once on the ground the airline arranged for all passengers to complete their journey to Belfast as quickly as possible.
Mike Rutter, sales director for Flybe, said: “The whole of Flybe's network is serviced in Exeter. This was a circulation system which failed to work, it can happen to any aircraft.
“At no time was safety compromised.”
Mr Rutter added that Flybe would not be carrying out checks on its fleet of Embraer 195 aircraft.
“We had an item of equipment fail, this is not a fleet issue,” he said.
The incident is not the only time recently that a Flybe plane has had to make an emergency landing.
The Echo reported in June how the Air Accident Investigation Branch had looked into an incident in September 2007 when the pilot of a flight from Belfast was forced to declare an emergency after what are believed to have been formaldehyde fumes left crew members feeling “inebriated, light-headed, sick and distressed”.
This involved a BAe 146-model which has since been phased out of operation.
In an incident in June last year, also concerning a BAe 146, two crew members were sick when overcome by what are thought to have been engine fumes on a flight from Birmingham to Belfast.
On landing, all seven were taken to hospital, and one of the stewardesses was subsequently off work for a month.
Mike Rutter
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