THE AIR Accident Investigation Unit of the Department of Transport, which is investigating the cause of a fire on board a transatlantic aircraft which made an emergency landing at Shannon airport last month, has confirmed that missing fittings which caused the fire were also found to be missing on several other aircraft.
The unit has published a preliminary report into the incident involving Virgin Atlantic flight VS039 which diverted to Shannon on January 11th. Headed by investigator Graham Liddy, the report also says it is still investigating “significant other issues” in relation to the incident.
The Airbus 340-300 series jet was carrying 156 passengers and crew on a scheduled service from London Heathrow to Chicago when the cabin crew reported a small fire in the bottom of the waste bin storage compartment of the bar unit in the first-class area.
The fire was located in a hole in the floor of the compartment. However, despite using five fire extinguishers, cabin crew were unable to put it out. Each time a fire extinguisher was used, the fire restarted after about five minutes. It was described as “licks of flame”.
The cockpit crew turned off the galley and commercial power circuits, but the fire and electrical arcing persisted.
The captain declared an emergency and diverted to Shannon, where the aircraft landed safety some 30 minutes later. Fire and medical crews from Ennis, Shannon and Limerick were on standby when the jet landed at Shannon 30 minutes later. The airport’s fire and rescue service used a larger 5kg extinguisher to tackle the fire, however a glow continued to be observed at the bottom of the hole.
It was decided to cut the power to the aircraft after which the glow disappeared and no further arcing was observed.
The investigation has found that the cable loom in the bottom of the bin compartment had been completely severed and bore strong evidence of burning/arcing. “No evidence of the presence of the loom cover or rails was found. Initial inspection indicated the possibility that they were never fitted.”
Following an inspection of Virgin’s A340-300 and A340-600 aircraft, a number of these aircraft also had problems relating to missing covers, rail screws and cable routing in this area.