Mini Trip Report - DJ1429, SYD-SYD

[Fruitcake]

Currently back in the lounge after a brief aerial tour of the northern beaches on tonight's DJ1429 from SYD-CNS. Shortly after takeoff I could get a scent of a smell that was a little "off," but overhearing the mention of the word 'smoke' in a telephone conversation between the CSM and the flight crew was enough for me to figure out what was going on. About two minutes later, we conducted a 180 degree turn and began to descend, followed by the pilot informing us that there were fumes in the coughpit related to an avionics screen failure and we were going back to SYD.

An uneventful return to SYD ensued, we landed and then disembarked under the watchful eyes of the lads from the firefighting service. After a couple of minutes hanging around the gate, we were told a substitute aircraft was being sourced. Currently waiting on the Lounge for all that to happen but we are expected to be underway at 2100, only a touch over an hour after disembarking the original aircraft.

Very impressed by the ability to summon up a spare aircraft with an hour - if it all plays out as advertised I'll be pretty happy with the outcome, although I'm going to assume that J catering won't be available.

 

[Noob]

Thanks for the report Fruitcake! Enjoy your second visit to the lounge.

 

[Fruitcake]

Well, the last scheduled flight for the night has been called for boarding and the Lounge staff have set up for breakfast - although they have told us they'll bring out anything we would like from the kitchen on request - but the bar will be open as long as we are here. But the reason we're still here is that the spare aircraft had issues of its own, so Lounge staff have done the rounds asking for preferences in hotel rooms.

About ten of us in the Lounge - in pretty good spirits.

 

[Simo]

Hope you get to CNS tomorrow morning.

 

[kevrosmith]

Can't see any mention of the incident in the couple of news services I checked... wonder if it will register any interest tomorrow. Hope the flight goes well tomorrow... I'll probably pass you in the air somewhere on my way to BNE in the morning!

And where's the sensationalist Thread header? "Emergency landing at SYD Airport after smoke pours from coughpit"? I reckon there'd be a flurry of views and replies for that one. Let me guess, you must work for a bank?

VH-ZPK... right I'll be watching out for that one in the next few weeks.

 

[N860CR]

This had a bit of a flow on for those on other flights. I was booked on DJ999 SYD-BNE and was (luckily) moved in the lounge to the flight before hand as they were going to cancel it. It was an E190. I believe the plan had been to use that aircraft for the CNS flight. In the end, it seems DJ999 departed as scheduled so I guess they changed their mind!

Glad it worked out for the best. These things happen from time to time and a good attitude is usually the easiest way to deal with them

 

[mannej]

Yes, bit surprised of no mention in the media.

Saying that, there was a QF aborted take off during the week in BNE, yet no mention and fairly hard to find details at all.

Also nothing on avherald, apart from the EK 380 and 777 who have both had IFSD's on the 7th November...

 

[Joshua]

Cue The Lazy Journalists Plane Story Generator ?

Sounds like it was all handled fairly well though.

 

[elemist]

Cue The Lazy Journalists Plane Story Generator ?

Sounds like it was all handled fairly well though.

first time i've seen that.. pure gold!

 

[KCMil]

It finally made it in to media this morning about 38 minutes ago in the Australian. It was a couple of paragraphs tagged onto the end of a long report about the Emirates A380 engine blow out and return to SYD.

As Follows:

Meanwhile a Virgin Australia plane bound for Cairns also turned back to Sydney Airport last night after the pilot reported an odour in the coughpit.
A Virgin spokeswoman said the pilot of the Embraer E-190 decided to turn back as a precautionary measure and the flight with about 100 people aboard landed without incident.
She said engineers found one of the electronic monitors in the coughpit was faulty and it was replaced.



Amazingly no comments about smoke, or emergency landing etc....

 

[SeaWolf]

so Lounge staff have done the rounds asking for preferences in hotel rooms.

Just out of curiosity, what options were on offer? Which hotel did they put you up in for the night?

 

[Fruitcake]

Just out of curiosity, what options were on offer? Which hotel did they put you up in for the night?

They asked about preferences for single vs double beds, and all of us were put in the airport Mercure. Must have been a quiet night for the Mercure because from what I could tell all pax from the flight who needed hotel rooms were put up there. $50 hotel restaurant vouchers were offered. A few people grumbled that they couldn't blow it all at the bar (had to be in the restaurant) but it seemed pretty reasonable to me. Restaurant wasn't open at the time most of us needed to leave the next morning, but the Mercure offered boxed breakfasts.

We flew out the next morning as DJ1411. The crew weren't aware that it was anything other than a regularly scheduled SYD-CNS flight before pax mentioned the last night's adventures to them - they said that all they'd heard was press reports that morning, nothing from the company.

 

[Fruitcake]

This had a bit of a flow on for those on other flights. I was booked on DJ999 SYD-BNE and was (luckily) moved in the lounge to the flight before hand as they were going to cancel it. It was an E190. I believe the plan had been to use that aircraft for the CNS flight. In the end, it seems DJ999 departed as scheduled so I guess they changed their mind!

Yes, as we found out the next morning the issue was apparently with crewing. The flight crew had been sitting in a fume-filled coughpit for 45 minutes and although your aircraft was "commandeered" for us, due to either the crew's own feelings or that of management the decision was they shouldn't turn around and try to fly the sector (fine by me; the smell in the cabin was pretty potent by the time we got back to the gate, the coughpit was presumably worse - even wearing oxygen masks I doubt it was much fun). Presumably taking the time to dig up a spare crew would have left us flirting with curfew so I think the decision was quite reasonable.

 

[eastwest101]

Pure fluke I know - but I also believe that ZPK was the first (and only - so far) E190 to be fitted out with the 1-2 J class seating... murphy's law in action.