Emirates B773 near Stockholm on Feb 14th 2011, smoke in cabin

Last Update: June 9, 2015 / 16:19:00 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Feb 14, 2011

Classification
Incident

Flight number
EK-203

Aircraft Registration
A6-ECE

Aircraft Type
Boeing 777-300

ICAO Type Designator
B773

An Emirates Boeing 777-300, registration A6-ECE performing flight EK-203 from Dubai (United Arab Emirates) to New York JFK,NY (USA) with 341 passengers and 20 crew, was enroute at FL320 about 120nm northeast of Stockholm (Sweden) when the crew diverted to Stockholm's Arlanda Airport reporting smoke in the cabin. The aircraft dumped fuel and landed safely on Arlanda's runway 01L about 40 minutes later.

The airplane was able to depart again after 5.5 hours on the ground.

Arlanda Airport reported, that the crew did not evacuate the aircraft, the passengers disembarked normally instead and waited inside the terminal.

The Swedish Havarikommission announced on Feb 17th that they are going to investigate the occurrence.

On Jun 9th 2015 the United Arab Emirates Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) released their final report into the incident concluding:

This investigation was unable to determine the cause of the disturbing odor in the passenger cabin.

The GCAA reported that Sweden's Havarikommission offered to delegate the investigation to the GCAA which was accepted.

The aircraft was enroute when an odour of burning rubber and sulphur was noticed in the cabin prompting the crew to divert to Stockholm for a safe landing at maximum landing weight.

Following maintenance action the aircraft departed again. At FL300 the odour occurred again. In consultation with maintenance the crew shut the right hand pack off in order to isolate the ozone system, after a few minutes the smell subsided and the flight continued to destination normally.

Following landing in New York the right hand pack's lower flow control valve was disabled in the closed position to isolate the ozone converter. Both packs were operated on the ground with no further anomaly noticed.

However, after departure from New York the smell occurred again, the right hand pack was shut down and the flight continued to destination. Subsequent flights were without anomaly.

The GCAA described maintenance actions at New York: "At JFK, the IFE Cooling Fan was replaced and the IFE System was checked by an engineer for full functionality. The system was found to function correctly. In the process of fault isolation, the RH Air Conditioning Pack upper Flow Control Valve (FCV) was deactivated in the closed position in order to force the ozone converter to be in the operational loop with the lower FCV. Under this condition, a strong smell reappeared in the cockpit and there was also an odor in the passenger cabin. In order to further identify the source the RH Pack Lower FCV was deactivated, and the Pack was selected to full heat and left running for ten minutes. Then the system was selected to normal zone temperature, and no odor was sensed. Four different persons confirmed the lack of smell, along with the out-bound cockpit crew. The Aircraft was dispatched with the RH Pack Lower FCV Deactivated in the Closed position (MEL 21-51-02-02 Cat-C) and consequently the Right Pack Ozone Converter was INOP (MEL 21-73-01 Cat-C);"

The investigation had the heat exchanger (HX) and condenser/reheater examined by the manufacturer, both were found contaminated with fluid. The HX had been cleaned prior to the occurrence and kept in storage before being mounted to the occurrence aircraft two days prior to the event.

The wet spot in the HX was identified to be water. The investigation attempted to analyse the wet spot in the condenser/reheater however failed to take samples, the liquid appeared to be water though, too. The GCAA annotated that even if the fluid had been anti-corrosion liquid as used to protect the condenser/reheater against corrosion, the smell would not have been sulphur like.

The GCAA stated therefore:

Because there was no foreign contamination found inside the HX or the Condenser/Reheater, it is concluded that neither unit contributed to the odor encountered in flight, and later on the ground during troubleshooting.

Further, since the smell was strong in the overwing cabin area, with the ozone converter in the flow circuit, and that the smell lessened when the ozone converter was bypassed, the most likely source of the smell was the ozone converter. The same HX and Condenser/Reheater were in the pack when both of these tests were run, including when there was no smell in the cabin.

Catalytic type converters are known to produce sulphur dioxide gas under certain conditions in the presence of exhaust fumes from burning hydrocarbon fuels. An aircraft that is in line for takeoff on a taxiway behind other aircraft with their engines running could conceivably ingest exhaust fumes into the bleed air supply system, and subsequently into the ozone converter. It is noted that trim air to the flight deck and cabin distribution system always passes through the ozone converter.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Feb 14, 2011

Classification
Incident

Flight number
EK-203

Aircraft Registration
A6-ECE

Aircraft Type
Boeing 777-300

ICAO Type Designator
B773

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