Lufthansa A343 at Frankfurt on Jun 11th 2018, tow truck catches fire

Last Update: June 12, 2018 / 14:35:37 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jun 11, 2018

Classification
Accident

Airline
Lufthansa

Flight number
LH-426

Departure
Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Destination
Philadelphia, United States

Aircraft Registration
D-AIFA

Aircraft Type
Airbus A340-300

ICAO Type Designator
A343

A Lufthansa Airbus A340-300, registration D-AIFA performing flight LH-426 from Frankfurt/Main (Germany) to Philadelphia,PA (USA), was under tow to the departure gate at Frankfurt's terminal when the tow truck caught fire. The flames substantially damaged the aircraft as well, 10 people received minor injuries.

Lufthansa reported a tow truck should have towed the empty aircraft to the departure gate, when the tow truck caught fire for so far unknown reason and substantially damaged the aircraft including smoke damage to the cockpit, too. Six people received minor injuries in the occurrence.

In the afternoon Lufthansa reported the number of injuries needed to be updated, 10 people received minor injuries as result of smoke inhalation, however, no passengers were affected. The airline re-iterated: "das Cockpit wurde massiv durch Rauch beeinträchtigt" (the cockpit was massively affected by smoke) when smoke entered the aircraft.

A replacement A340-300 registration D-AIGP departed with a delay of two hours.

On Jun 12th 2018 Lufthansa reported the tug was a Diesel driven tow truck operated by their own handling firm LEOS. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. The damage of the airframe is being assessed and will take days.

On Jun 12th 2018 Germany's BFU reported they are not going to investigate the occurrence.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jun 11, 2018

Classification
Accident

Airline
Lufthansa

Flight number
LH-426

Departure
Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Destination
Philadelphia, United States

Aircraft Registration
D-AIFA

Aircraft Type
Airbus A340-300

ICAO Type Designator
A343

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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