Pilots take emergency action after smoke alarm

PILOTS of a passenger plane were forced to take emergency action when their aircraft gave a false smoke warning, a report into the incident has said.

A smoke warning indicator had lit up as the Edinburgh-bound Dash 8 aircraft carrying 47 passengers was about 25 miles south-west of Carlisle, in Cumbria, on the morning of 21 July last year.

The cockpit crew of the craft, operated by airline Flybe and flying from Newquay Airport in Cornwall, carried out checklist actions designed to tackle fire or smoke from an unknown source, the report from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said.

This, however, caused the aircraft to begin to depressurise, the commander had to fly manually and the co-pilot’s flight displays were blank.

The report said that actions “degraded the operational capability significantly”, and that “consequently the crew’s workload increased, which would have made managing the overall situation more difficult”.

However, AAIB added that the captain had told the co-pilot that while no smoke had been seen, they agreed that the situation would have to be treated “as real”.

The plane landed safely at Edinburgh, but the report was critical of the evacuation procedure as, while passengers were able to use steps at the front left door, the other doors had neither steps nor slides.

In addition, some passengers tried to put on coats and take belongings with them and the evacuation was slowed by some being reluctant to jump down from the door sills which were more than 5ft above the ground.

The false smoke alarm was latterly thought to have been caused by a short circuit in the smoke detector connector.

The AAIB said safety action had been taken by the aircraft’s operator to prevent a similar short circuit and “to ensure pilots received training with respect to aircraft evacuation”.