Aviation Herald is reporting that the Air Canada flight from Honolulu to Vancouver had a problem last Saturday.
A fire broke out on board nearly two hours into the flight, at nearly the worst possible point. The fire, which occurred in a galley oven, was extinguished and the plane continued safely to Vancouver. Kudos to Air Canada.
I’ve never experienced a fire on board, but am sure that the passengers had quite a scare. It got me thinking about my worst airplane scares, which include a foam landing at Cork, Ireland when the landing gear wouldn’t engage. As I may also have mentioned previously, I have at home the boarding pass for a flight I missed. The plane crashed on approach to Kathmandu killing all aboard.
Do you have any near disasters you’d care to share?
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This happened to my uncle (no longer living) years ago. He had tickets to ride the Titanic on it’s maiden voyage but got a bad case of the flu and had to cancel. Oh my……
It proves that ‘when your number is up…it’s up”….so count your blessings every day.
About 750,000 miles in the air and no near- (or full-) mishaps. One semi-hard landing that popped out some oxygen masks from the ceiling compartment is about as exciting as it gets. Didn’t keep the BP for that flight. And I am not jealous of your Kathmandu BP either, Jeff 🙂
Our son and daughter in law had a ‘near miss’ while coming in for a landing in Denver a few years ago. They didn’t realize what happened until they got to their hotel and saw it on TV.
The jet they were on did a very steep dive during landing – they thought it was air turbulence. Nope – it was a ‘near miss’ with a small aircraft. That could have been a disaster for everyone. Still gives this mom the creeps to think of it.
I was flying from Guam back to Viet Nam after a R&R in Hawaii when I looked out the window & saw one of the engines on fire!….lots of fire!
It would be bad to get killed in RVN but to die on a plane going back would really suck! lol
I got up & talked to the FA, not wanting to create any panic & she said they were working on it.
They put out the fire & we returned to Guam & I got 4 extra days of R&R in Guam while they got a new engine. THat was nice.
Years later, while a recruiter in Alaska I was flying into a small native town of Igiaugig(sp) in the winter when the single engine plane spun a couple donuts on the icy runway when landing. That was kind of fun also.
None of those compared to getting shot down & crashing 3 times in helo’s. That always gets the pucker factor going.
A small plane came taxi-ing toward us at the Honolulu airport once about 20 years ago. Still remember the ‘nothing we can do’ feeling…scary
wow. my jaw dropped reading about Kathmandu!!!!
Wow, that short reference to the plane crash at Katmandu and you missing it alone is hair raising. As for this incident, glad the Air Canada crew took quick action to avoid a disaster.
David, I thought I’d written about the Kathmandu flight before. I’ll look back and, if not, will do something on it.
Aloha, Jeff