Pakistan International Airlines flight 711 had to divert and make an emergency landing at Shannon Airport, Shannon, County Clare, Ireland, on April 23rd.
The Boeing 777-200, flying from Manchester, England, to New York, was mid-air above Northern Ireland when it was diverted in emergency due to smoke in the cockpit.
The plane landed uneventfully.
All passengers and crew members onboard remained unharmed.
Jet2 flight LS-518 made an emergency landing at Shannon Airport, Ireland, on January 1st.
The Boeing 737-800 plane, en-route from Tenerife to Newcastle, England, was diverted after the crew reported that a disruptive and intoxicated female passenger was causing trouble.
The plane landed safely and all 161 passengers and six crew members remained unhurt.
The 42-year-old woman passenger was arrested while the plane resumed its journey after a short delay.
United Parcel Service flight 213 had to make an emergency landing at Shannon Airport, Ireland, on September 25.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 plane, heading from Louisville, Kentucky to Cologne, Germany, was diverted after the pilots noticed issues with one of its three engines and had to shut it down.
The plane landed safely. There were 6 crew members aboard at the time; none of them was hurt.
The plane was taken for inspection.
Air Canada flight ACA-871 made an emergency landing at Shannon airport, Ireland, on August 14th.
The plane, heading to Montreal, Canada, from Paris, France, had to be diverted after a passenger apparently suffered a cardiac arrest.
The cabin crew provided emergency medical assistance to the patient before the plane safely landed.
The patient was rushed to University Hospital Limerick while the plane, with over 400 people aboard, resumed its journey.
A US military plane had to make an emergency landing at Shannon Airport, Ireland, on the morning of February 28.
Authorities said the crew of Hercules C-130 turbo-prop aircraft sought permission for an emergency landing due to fault in one of the engines.
The plane landed uneventfully and no one aboard was harmed.
Seventy minutes after a mayday when a cargo of vegetables (peppers and flowers) set off a smoke alarm, Air France flight AF-733 made an emergency landing at Shannon Airport today at 9.55am. The flight was en route from Santo Domingo to Paris with 142 passengers and 14 crew when they diverted.
Emergency services, Shannon based Irish Coast Guard helicopter, the fire department, the RNLI lifeboat at Kilrush, and HSE ambulances were on standby as passengers disembarked via stairs. Passengers are being accommodated in the terminal as they wait for an alternative flight.
No fire or heat spots were detected aboard.
After AF447–the deadliest in the history of Air France–it is always alarming to hear of an issue aboard an AF trans-Atlantic flight. That Air France Rio de Janeiro-Paris flight crashed on June 1, 2009 and led to an exhaustive but successful multi-phase ocean search. On April 3, 2011, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution located the debris field.
While today’s thermal food was both alarming and anti-climactic, it was also a successful demonstration of contemporary aviation accident prevention. We are well familiar with how investigations of safety issues contribute to making flight safer, but rarely do we give credit to crew resource management. How the crew responds to the crisis, (even when it is just a sensitive alert that goes off), how well coordinated and cool-headed the crew is can mean the difference between life and death.
We don’t need to think of AF447, or even Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, to appreciate the integrated clockwork of a well-trained crew; but it does make us wonder if those crews were as well-trained as the one on this jet today, if either of those tragedies might have been prevented.
