A Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330 airplane flying to Barbados on Sunday had to make a sudden landing at Manchester Airport because there were reports of smoke inside the cockpit. Around 1:50 pm, the pilots noticed a strong and unpleasant smell of smoke, as mentioned on an aviation website forcing them to make an emergency diversion to prevent any possible catastrophe.
The flight, with callsign VS77, had left Manchester for Bridgetown just an hour before the emergency landing, but it had to turn back after being in the air for only about 20 minutes. The plane landed safely, and the airport firefighters were there to meet it.
Virgin Atlantic said that a “technical issue” was the reason behind the disrupted flight.
The flight had to be canceled, and all the passengers who were affected have been given new bookings on different flights.
At the same time, a spokesperson for the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service told that they received a call about an incident involving an airplane making an emergency landing at Manchester Airport around 1:30 pm on Sunday.
They mentioned, ‘Three fire engines from Wythenshawe and Stockport, the Technical Response Unit from Ashton, and the Command Support Unit from Hyde quickly arrived at the scene. Firefighters, along with Manchester Airport fire personnel, were on standby for the aircraft’s safe landing. Our crews were there for approximately one and a half hours.’
This isn’t the first instance where a flight faced issues due to smoke. In September 2023, an Air China flight had to make an emergency landing because the engine caught fire, and the cabin filled with smoke. The flight, CA403, was en route to Singapore from Chengdu, China, when the incident happened.
Changi Airport in Singapore confirmed that the flight crew reported smoke in the forward cargo hold and lavatory around 4 pm, and the aircraft was given priority to land at the airport at approximately 4:15 pm after declaring an emergency. The airport mentioned, ‘After landing, emergency slides of the aircraft were deployed for a quick evacuation.’”
