Tuifly B738 near Geneva on Jun 7th 2009, smoke in cabin

Last Update: May 3, 2012 / 11:25:44 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jun 7, 2009

Cause
Smoke in cabin

Airline
TUIFly

Aircraft Registration
N97325

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-800

ICAO Type Designator
B738

The Swiss Bureau for Air Accident Investigation (BFU) released their final report concluding the probable cause of the serious incident was:

The serious incident is due to the emission of smoke as a result of a short-circuit caused by an assembly defect on a printed circuit of an audio box (SEB) located under a passenger seat on an airliner.

The aircraft was enroute, the cabin service had just been completed, when a passenger notified cabin crew "Hier brennts!" ("Something's on fire!"). Cabin crew also noticed an acrid white smoke though no flames were visible. The flight attendant notified the cockpit, fetched a fire extinguisher and sprayed the area the white smoke was coming from. The purser checked for any source of heat without noticing heat, she identified the smell as burnt wires. After the purser informed the captain about the situation on board, the commander decided to declare Mayday about 3 minutes after the passenger informed cabin crew, reported an electrical fire on board and diverted to Geneva. Air traffic control cleared the aircraft to descend to FL190, then turned to another aircraft directing the aircraft to switch to another frequency, which the crew of D-AHLR took for themselves however and switched to that false frequency too.

When the crew reported on the incorrect frequency the puzzled controller sent the aircraft back onto its previous frequency. At the same time the original controller had already tried to contact flight X3-2367 and did not get a reply, another crew reported the crew had switched to the wrong frequency. The controller again tried to raise X3-2367 on his frequency and the emergency frequency and made contact on the emergency frequency now handing the aircraft off to the correct frequency.

While cleared and descending below FL190, after the cabin crew had already taken their seats, the passenger again reported smoke in his vicinity. Another fire extinguisher was discharged into the area, the commander was informed and now considered the possibility of an evacuation, cabin crew was advised and prepared for an evacuation. The cockpit crew informed ATC that they still had a fire on board, the fire was under control but there was still a glow in the area. The crew did not advise ATC of a possible evacuation.

The aircraft landed safely on runway 23 and taxied via taxiway C to the apron following a follow me vehicle. Once the aircraft had stopped on the apron, fire crews entered the aircraft through the main door using thermal imaging. The audio electronic box underneath the reporting passenger's seat was identified and removed.

No damage beyond the audio box occurred.

The Swiss BFU reported: "The crew as a whole, under the influence of their commander, refused to give any information regarding this incident, demanding the presence of a representative of their company. The captain returned to his hotel, conducted a debriefing and returned to Germany the next day."

The audio box was found to contain two fuses, F1 designed to trip at 0.75A and F2 designed to trip at 0.5A, the board however had 0.5A at position F1 and 0.75A at position F2. Had the correct fuses been installed the unit would not have been damaged, that way however a number of capacitator, resistors and inductors received heat damage resulting in the smoke.

It was not possible to determine when the fuses were transposed. The unit however is usually only replaced and not being repaired. The airline reported that all other units were checked and no other occurrences of transposed fuses were found.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jun 7, 2009

Cause
Smoke in cabin

Airline
TUIFly

Aircraft Registration
N97325

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-800

ICAO Type Designator
B738

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