A 27-year-old British Airways Boeing 777-200 flying from Chicago O’Hare to London Heathrow was forced to make an emergency diversion to Goose Bay Airport in Canada’s remote Northeast after a ‘noxious odour’ was detected onboard.
British Airways flight BA298 departed nearly three hours late on Thursday night due to what passengers were told was an electrical problem, which had apparently been fixed before the jet was allowed to depart for London.
Around two hours into the flight, however, the pilots were forced to suddenly divert to the nearest available airport capable of handling a widebody aircraft when a so-called ‘smoke, fire or fumes’ event was reported onboard.
Thankfully, the issue was detected before the plane had started its transatlantic crossing, and the aircraft (registration: G-VIIB) was on the ground just over 30 minutes later.
Once safely on the ground, however, it has been reported that at least two crew members had to be helped off the plane by paramedics. Both crew members had oxygen masks.
Meanwhile, passengers were kept onboard the plane because of immigration issues at Goose Bay Airport.
One passenger onboard the stricken aircraft, Ben Bruskin, complained that there hadn’t been any update from the Captain for a couple of hours, saying passengers were being held without any information.
There was, however, help on the way. British Airways cancelled a scheduled day-time flight from Boston to London Heathrow and sent the plane that was meant to operate this service to Goose Bay to rescue the stranded passengers.
In a statement, a spokesperson for British Airways told us: “Our customers are on their way back to London on a replacement aircraft.”
“We apologised to our customers for the delay to their journey after the flight diverted as a precaution due to a suspected technical issue. Safety is always our highest priority and we would never operate a flight unless it was safe to do so.”
The incident comes just days after a British Airways Airbus A380 was also forced to make an emergency diversion after fumes were detected onboard. British Airways flight BA292 from Washington Dulles to London Heathrow on July 8 ended up in Boston, where emergency services and paramedics were waiting to meet the aircraft.
The crew reported a strong smell of laundry detergent that caused dizziness, nausea, and headaches. The smell was traced to five pallets of fresh-scented laundry beads in the cargo hold.
In June 2019, the same aircraft involved in Thursday night’s diversion had another ‘smoke, fire and fume’ event when the smell of smoke was detected in the cabin while the plane was flying from New York JFK to London Heathrow.
The aircraft made an emergency diversion to Gander and was later ferried back to BA’s maintenance base in Cardiff.
British Airways has been contacted for comment.
