Cockpit Screens Went Blank
as Chemical Odor Filled Flight Deck of Frontier Airlines Plane That Made Dramatic
Emergency Landing in Las Vegas
28th October 2024
The
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has published its preliminary
report into a dramatic emergency landing of a Frontier Airlines Airbus A321 at
Las Vegas Harry Reid Airport on October 5 which resulted in flames and smoke
shooting out of the main landing gears as it came to a halt on the runway.
Frontier
Airlines flight 1326 was in its final minutes of flight from San Diego to Las
Vegas, but as an otherwise uneventful flight drew to an end, the flight
attendants told the pilots that they could smell a chemical-like odor in the
cabin.
A
short while later, the pilots could smell the same odor in the cockpit. As the
smell became increasingly pungent and acrid, the pilots quickly donned their
oxygen masks and began working through an emergency checklist to deal with a
possible onboard fire.
As
the two pilots began working through the checklist, the First Officer told NTSB
investigators that he noticed some of the aircraft systems starting to
malfunction or “degrade.”
To
make matters worse, the emergency checklist advised the pilots to place the
aircraft into the ‘electrical emergency configuration’ because they were still
to work out the source of the smell. Doing this took out the display screens,
radio and transponder on the First Officer’s side of the flight deck.
“The
crew described their workload as high and the environment as increasingly
hectic and stressful,” the NTSB’s report says of the incident. “The captain
opted to focus on landing the airplane and relied on outside visual references
during the approach.”
“During
this time, the first officer noted that the captain’s primary flight display
(PFD) had ‘limited data represented.’ The captain recalled that they used the
speeds placard on the instrument panel when configuring the airplane because the
speed symbols on the PFD airspeed indicator were not present.”
After
successfully touching down on runway 26L at Las Vegas Airport, witnesses
described hearing two loud bangs at tires in the main landing gears exploded.
Smoke
and flames started to shoot out of the main landing gear, although the fire
extinguished on its own shortly before the aircraft came to a stop on the
runway. The airport fire department arrived almost immediately, having been on
standby due to the declared emergency, and sprayed the landing gear with foam.
The
cause of the smell onboard is yet to be determined, although the onboard
computer system recorded that just two minutes before the First Officer
declared an emergency, there had been a fault with a fan that cools the
avionics compartment.
The
NTSB noted in its preliminary report that the emergency checklist used by the
pilots includes a provision to restore electrical systems prior to landing to
allow for recovery of inoperative systems.
This
could have included wheel brake anti-skid, engine reversers, and the nosewheel
steering system that could have made the aircraft a lot easier to land without
incident.
The
investigation continues.
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar
Merk: Bare medlemmer av denne bloggen kan legge inn en kommentar.