Er, you’ve sprayed foam on wrong plane: Chinese airport firemen mix up aircraft after fire alert
Emergency workers at Fuzhou Changle Airport drive past an Air China aircraft waiting for take-off after reports of sparks coming from one engine and douse foam over Fuzhou Airlines jet instead
Firemen at a Chinese airport were left red-faced after responding to reports of a fire in a passenger jet’s engine by driving past the aircraft and spraying foam on another jet by mistake, mainland media reports.
The pilot of Fuzhou Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane raised the alarm by contacting the control tower at Fuzhou Changle International Airport , in Fuzhou, Fujian province, on Thursday after noticing sparks coming from the right-hand engine of an Air China Boeing 737-800 that was waiting to take off nearby, the Beijing Youth Daily reported on Friday.
Officials in the control tower immediately sent eight fire engines to the scene.
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By the time the firemen arrived, the Air China aircraft had already shut down its engines. The firemen drove straight past the airliner and, after spotting heat emissions coming from the Fuhou Airlines jet's engines, hosed down the plane with foam to “cool it” down.
After two minutes officials in the control tower contacted the firemen after noticing that they had sprayed foam on the wrong aircraft.
Flights at the airport returned to normal 90 minutes after the report of the engine fire, but a number of flights were delayed.
Air China said in a statement that the sparks seen coming from its engine were “normal” and would not pose any risk to the aircraft.
Some aircraft fuel would trigger sparks when the engine was running at a low pressure, the statement said.
However, the report did not say why the Air China aircraft had shut down its engines.
Zhang Qihuai, an aviation expert in Beijing, told the newspaper that officials in the control tower should have called the Air China pilot to confirm there had been a problem with its engine before dispatching fire engines. But the airport firemen should also bear some responsibility for the mistake, he added.
