A330 i inflight upset - RAF

RAF pauses Voyager operations after in-flight incident

By: Craig Hoyle

London

Source:

08:27 13 Feb 2014

The UK Royal Air Force has temporarily suspended operations with its new fleet of Airbus A330 Voyager tanker/transports, after one its current six examples was involved in an unexplained flight incident.
In a statement, the Ministry of Defence confirms that “a Voyager aircraft suffered an in-flight issue on 9 February and as a precaution diverted to an airfield in Turkey.”
AirTanker, which provides the Voyager fleet via the UK’s Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft programme, describes the incident as having involved “an unscheduled change of flight level”, which occurred while the transport was above Turkey en route to Afghanistan.

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Following the event, the aircraft landed safely at Incirlik air base, with nine crew members and 189 passengers aboard. “A few passengers received minor injuries during the incident,” the MoD says, without providing further details. Those personnel affected were transported back to the UK using a Lockheed TriStar from the RAF’s 216 Sqn, it adds.
“The safety of all our aircrews and passengers is our paramount concern, therefore, it has been decided to temporarily pause military registered Voyager flying while a full investigation is completed,” the MoD says.