A Swiss Air Flight Attendant is Still in Intensive Care Four Days After Airbus A220 Makes Emergency Landing When Smoke Filled Cabin
- Swiss International Airlines says that a preliminary investigation into the accident points to an issue with the Pratt & Whitney engines that power the Airbus A220. A spokesperson says the airline remains 'deeply concerned' about the medical condition of the crew member.
Four days after an Airbus A220 operated by Swiss International Airlines made an emergency landing at Graz Airport in Austria, a flight attendant remains in hospital being treated in intensive care after smoke filled the cockpit and passenger cabin.
In a short statement, a spokesperson for the Swiss flag carrier confirmed that two of the three cabin crew members on the plane remain in hospital and that one is being treated in a critical care unit.
The airline says it is “deeply concerned” about the condition of the male crew member and that it is in close contact with the doctors who are overseeing his medical care in Graz.
Family members have already been flown to Graz to be at his bedside, and the airline says it is providing specialist care for the crew member’s relatives.
Swiss Air flight LX1885 to Zurich departed Bucharest at around 5:30 pm on December 23 for the two-hour flight to Switzerland’s largest city, but just over an hour into the flight, the pilots made the decision to divert to Graz when smoke started to fill the cabin.
All 74 passengers and five crew members onboard the seven-year-old aircraft were evacuated onto the runway via emergency slides. Ten passengers also required medical assistance but have since been discharged from the hospital.
Swiss says it is still working to establish what caused the smoke in the passenger cabin, but preliminary investigations point to an issue with one of the two Pratt & Whitney engines that power the Airbus A220-300.
“Our teams of experts are working hard over the festive season to evaluate all the facts and findings available and are in close contact with the authorities,” a spokesperson for the airline explained.
“The initial findings point to a technical problem in one of the engines. Investigations of this kind are complex, and SWISS is also dependent on information from the investigating authorities and manufacturers,” the statement continued.
Experts are investigating not only a potential issue with the engines and the effects the smoke would have had on the passengers on the crew but also the special ‘smoke hoods’ that cabin crew wear in so-called ‘smoke, odor or fume’ events.
In 2023, Swiss announced that it was working to urgently replace more than 1,000 smoke hoods after discovering that one of two types of smoke hood used by the airline had ‘partially limited’ functionality.
The hoods are correctly known as ‘protective breathing equipment’ or PBE for short and act in a similar way to the breathing equipment that firefighters wear by supplying a fresh supply of oxygen to crew members dealing with a smoke or fume event.
Smoke hoods have small oxygen generators inside them that supply oxygen for up to 15 minutes – enough time to hopefully establish the cause of smoke and fight the fire.
