Kenya Airways makes an emergency landing in Dar-es Salaam amidst a fire scare
An airplane belonging to Kenya Airways made a safe landing in Dar-Es Salaam on Tuesday morning to avert a fire scare on the African giant plane. The plane had arrived from New York, USA at 07.00 AM and took another journey just a few hours later but within the continent.
All the occupants including 142 passengers and 10 crew members were safe as Kenya Airways’ B787 Dreamliner made an emergency landing in the neighboring Tanzanian city. The plane was destined for OR-Tambo Airport in South Africa at 01.05 PM, but developed mechanical problems just 35 minutes later.
Confused operations and Lapses at Kenya Airways
It seems Kenya Airways controllers were reluctant to learn from a situation involving a Dreamliner that was travel the South African route on 12th February where the deck informed the pilot to take a precaution.
The early Tuesday incident had more confusion with the KQ’s duty manager having no flight plan for the Flight KQ 762. It meant that the manager never knew the location of the plane only to learn later and request the pilot to reroute back to Nairobi. However, the pilot couldn’t take risk as he opted to land in Tanzania after one engine overheated and allegedly near showing fire.
The laxity comes just within one month when an airplane belonging to Ethiopia Airways claimed the lives of all occupants just after taking off from Addis Ababa to Nairobi. The disaster led to numerous countries banning Boeing 737 from their airwaves.
About B787 Dreamliner
Kenya Airways had acquired the Dreamliner four years ago, and it’s one of the 9 models the Kenyan national carrier has. The plane has two engines where each engine has the ability to stay in the sky for five hours and a half.
Kenya Airways CEO Sebastian Mikosz confirmed to The Daily Nation about the incident, and said that the KQ engineers were on their way to establish whether the situation needed an engine change. The airplane had reinstalled the troubled engine from the manufacturer seven months ago.
Was the Kenya Airways B787 Dreamliner’s engine on fire?
While the plane was 38,000 feet airborne, the crew received a warning that one of the engine was overheating. As the plane continued to soar, it indicated a fire warning prompting the pilot to initiate a landing option. However, the fire warning soon cleared even before the plane made the safe landing in Dar-Es Salaam.