Emergency Evacuation of Plane at Sky Harbor

[Matt Ottosen]

Emergency Evacuation of Plane at Sky Harbor

Updated: Friday, 10 Jul 2009, 10:31 PM MDT
Published : Friday, 10 Jul 2009, 9:44 PM MDT

MyFox Phoenix - Julie Rose

PHOENIX - 400 people onboard a British Airways plane about to depart from Sky Harbor Airport Friday night were evacuated after smoke started billowing into the cabin.

When the 747 was pushing back from the gate around 8:10 p.m., smoke began filling the cabin.

A passenger told FOX 10 that a "noxious odor" spilled into the cabin and said many people were complaining about not being able to breathe.

Passengers were evacuated onto the tarmac via the inflatable doorway slides.

No injuries were reported, and all the passengers were taken to a terminal.

The fire department is at the scene and trying to determine the source of the smoke.

The flight was heading to London.

[Joe Copalman]

There's a "who farted?" joke in there somewhere.

[Dave S.]

Looks like they have a replacement aircraft due to arrive just after 4:45 this afternoon.  The regularly scheduled arrival is due in just after 5:15 this afternoon.  Wow, THREE BA 747 at PHX.  Where will they park them all?

Dave

[Rob Silliman]

FlightAware - is currently showing the two new BA arrivals will be showing up less than 10 minutes apart;

- BAW9CG @ 1712 MST
- BAW289 @ 1718 MST

[Rob Silliman]

I think I finally came up w/ an explanation for why we saw two flight plans on Saturday but only a single plane.  The orignal flight plan - tied to the 'normal' (stuck on the ground in PHX), and then the 'extra' plane taking the route over.

The original flight plan probably wasn't ever cancelled - so flight tracking showed two flights - when it was only actually the one replacement.

[Dave S.]

Rob,

I had a similar thought, but I don't think the same plane flies the from/to PHX route back to back.  I think it's about a 26 hour cycle for the round trip.  In other words, I think the plane from Phoenix arrives in London a couple of hours after the flight to Phoenix departs.  I suppose I could double check that on flightaware.com to verify.  Hmmm

Okay, just looked it up.  The flight cycle is just under 22 hours, arrives from Phoenix at 5:00 MST and then departs at 6:45 MST.  That leaves less than 2 hours on the ground in London to deplane and then board the flight to Phoenix.  Not sure they'd run it that tight.

One last thought: not sure what the impact of daylight savings has on this schedule.

Dave