SECOND ETHIOPIAN INCIDENT GOES LARGELY UNNOTICED
(Posted 20th July 2013)
An Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to the town of Axum earlier in the week ran into some trouble, when cockpit indicators on the Bombardier Q400 showed smoke developing.
A few minutes to the scheduled landing, from the sketchy details available at present, the cockpit crew reportedly realized one engine not operating normally and smoke emerging from it but landed the plane safely at the airport.
While no formal statement is available at this moment in time, when the article is being uploaded, it is understood from a regular source in Addis that the incident is under investigation by both airline and technical personnel of the inspectorate department of the Ethiopian CAA.
Ethiopian Airlines is Africa’s largest operator of the Bombardier Q400 turboprop aircraft and has more recently started taking delivery of a two class configured version with additional galley facilities and space in overhead hand baggage compartments, deploying the aircraft for domestic but also in growing numbers regional routes as far as Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda on less density departures.
Earlier this week happened a more widely reported incident on an Ethiopian Airlines’ B7878 Dreamliner while parked at London’s Heathrow Airport with the latest indication given by investigators that the cause of the fire was most likely a malfunctioning emergency locator beacon, which both EASA and UKAAIB have now directed to disable on all aircraft under their jurisdiction until fuller details have been established of what may have prompted the device to overheat and trigger a fire.
Watch this space for breaking and regular news from Eastern Africa’s aviation industry.
