simba8

From Global News:

http://globalnews.ca/news/3139818/el...g-mayday-call/

Audio from video says- right engine fire.


An EL AL flight en route to Tel Aviv from Toronto was forced to return to the city after issuing a mayday call.

"We felt some sort of explosion or combustion on the right side of the plane. The lights went off and everything kind of started to flicker a bit,” he said Tuesday evening.

LY777

It is high time these old planes are gone

sabbasolo

Here is a link to the recording from liveatc.net

http://www.liveatc.net/forums/index.....0;attach=9162

The age of the aircraft is irrelevant, engine fires are very very rare, and LY seems to have many many maintenance issues relative to the size of their fleet.

sds1493

Would older planes not need more maintenance and hence be more likely to suffer from maintenance issues?

simba8

Well, in regards to maintenance, I was surprised that they brought the plane back online in December, given the route was leasing planes between June- Dec- and that there was more than sufficient time for "maintenance" - but the plane is very old, and there is only so much maintenance that can be done.

I have wonder where they go from here.
As they enter the busy season for the next 3 week- it maybe abit challenging in terms of replacement of the aircraft (probably lease out to Hifly for the next few months).

The plane is currently still sitting where it landed and hasnt been moved or touched or since it landed last night (they showed a live shot of it on the tv news).

Passengers sat on the tarmac for 3 hours before being able to leave- though im sure that protocol in terms of safety.

sabbasolo

As far as I know, older planes do tend to need more preventative maintenance, and to accumulate glitches that don't affect flight safety or operations, but they should be no more likely than a new aircraft to suffer dangerous things like engine fires. The engine on this plane would be no older than the engine on other, newer planes. Engines are replaced or completely overhauled after a certain number of flight hours. The CF6 used on the 767 are very reliable engines which together have accumulated nearly 400 million flight hours www.geaviation.com/commercial/engines/cf6/

clubman

It's 18 years old, so while certainly not young, it could hardly be considered very old in aircraft terms.

sabbasolo

On the other hand, the pilots handled it very professionally, calmly and correctly. There is some discussion here about dumping fuel and long final, but everyone agrees that it was well handled.