Fire on a Boeing 767 forces evacuation, sends five to hospital

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MONTREAL – Seven people arriving on a Boeing 767 operated by Royal Air Maroc were treated for smoke inhalation Monday evening – after a fire on a baggage belt adjacent to an open cargo door in the aircraft’s belly triggered a full-scale emergency evacuation of 250 passengers and eight crew.

The incident took place on the tarmac at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Dorval, airport public-relations spokesperson François Asselin said, with the fire reported at 4:47 p.m.

Three people suffered lower-body injuries “consistent of the type sustained in a sliding fall,” after they used the plane’s emergency exit slides, Marc-André Gagnon, operations chief at Urgences-Santé, said.

Five of the injured, all women, were treated on the scene and were then taken to a hospital, he said.

The other two injured, both men, refused to be hospitalized.

Asselin said the aircraft, operating as Flight 206 on a direct flight from Casablanca, Morocco, had touched down about 4:30 p.m.

“I can confirm there was smoke. I can’t confirm whether there was smoke inside the aircraft,” Asselin said.

The evacuation, he suggested, was “more of a precautionary measure.”

Asselin, who has spent about 15 years in the aviation business, said that “this is the first time I can recall such an incident at Montreal-Trudeau,” with emergency-slide deployment.

No dollar estimate of the monetary damages was immediately available.

The plane remains out of service, pending the arrival of investigators “first thing in the morning” from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, Asselin said.

 

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Search for missing airplane in Great Dismal Swamp continued

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The wreckage of a small plane was found on the Virginia side of the Great Dismal Swamp Friday afternoon, but state police have not confirmed it is the plane officials have been searching for since Thursday.

A helicopter pilot instructor who volunteered to help Virginia State Police with the search found the wreckage about 4 p.m. and notified officials, state police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said in a news release.

Officials have not confirmed the wreckage found was that of a Cessna that was headed to the Hampton Roads Executive Airport from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Thursday afternoon but never arrived.

While searches on ground and by boat have been underway since Thursday, state police have not been able to use their own planes in the search because of the weather.

Virginia State Police and other agencies resumed their search Friday for a plane reported missing a day earlier after it did not arrive as scheduled to a Chesapeake airport.

State police, Civil Air Patrol, Tidewater Search and Rescue personnel, Chesapeake Fire and Rescue crews and state park rangers are scouring the Great Dismal Swamp for a Cessna airplane that was reported missing at about 4:15 p.m. Thursday after it did not arrive at the Hampton Roads Executive Airport, said Corinne Geller, a spokeswoman for Virginia State Police.

The plane — which was traveling from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — lost its signal in the area of the swamp, Geller said.

Geller said officials are not confirming if there were passengers on the plane or confirming how many were on board if there were.

“We have been in touch with family members,” she said. “Our real focus today is locating the aircraft.”

As of noon Friday, officials had not found the aircraft or received reports of a plane crash, Geller said.

Crews are conducting a ground search of the area using dogs after an aerial search was called off Thursday night because of the weather. Planes remained grounded Friday after conditions had not improved.

The weather has made an already difficult search much harder, Geller said. She said vast and ever-changing terrain of the swamp poses significant challenges for search teams, in addition to crews not knowing exactly where to begin looking.

Anyone with information about the plane or may have seen a plane in the area should contact state police at 1-800-582-8350.

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Drunk passenger challenges airplane captain to a fight after stripping naked

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A DRUNK airline passenger stripped naked and challenged the plane’s captain to a fight on airport tarmac before being tasered by police.

The burly, tattooed 52-year-old was caught on video stripping to his black underpants, shouting and remonstrating after stepping off the easyJet flight from Malta to Manchester.

He then removed his underpants and received a hard slap across his face by his female companion before putting his clothes back on.

The incident was caught on video. The stripper, who has not been identified but spoke with a Manchester accent, also urinated on the side of the Terminal One building at Manchester Airport and was later tasered and arrested by police.

Trouble reportedly first began mid-flight when the man became abusive and started swearing at fellow passengers and the captain left the cockpit controls to speak to him.

After being slapped following the plane’s landing, he put his clothes back on before going to collect his baggage but police caught up with him.

They tried to control him but had to stun him using a “dry” Taser – where the gun is held against the target to cause shock and pain – when he refused to co-operate.

He was then arrested and given an on-the-spot fine.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said: “At 9.50am on Thursday September 26 2013, police were called to Terminal One arrivals of Manchester Airport following reports a man was drunk and being abusive to passengers on a flight from Malta.

“As he left the plane, he took his clothes off and urinated against a wall.

“A 52-year-old man was stunned using an electronic stun gun and arrested on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly in a public place. He was issued a fixed penalty notice.”

 

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Emergency landing after pilot dies

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A pilot who fell ill at the controls of his plane forcing his passenger to land the light aircraft has died, police have said.

The man collapsed in the cockpit of the plane after taking off, leaving the “inexperienced” passenger to make an emergency landing.

The plane landed at Humberside Airport UK under the guidance of instructors called in by air traffic controllers.

Police said they were unable to confirm the cause of death.

A spokesman for Humberside Police said: “A post mortem is to be undertaken following the sad death of the pilot of a light aircraft which landed safely at Humberside Airport yesterday evening.

“The post mortem is likely to take place tomorrow afternoon. The results of the examination will determine whether it is necessary to prepare a file for reference to the coroner.”

The plane was landed at Humberside Airport by a passenger under the guidance of two flying instructors

He added the death was not being treated as suspicious and said: “In accordance with the wishes of the family of the deceased, police will not be confirming the identity of the pilot nor releasing any video footage of the incident.”

Police, fire and ambulance crews were called to the North Lincolnshire airport after a distress call was made from the light aircraft at about 18:25 BST.

Eyewitness saw sparks

Two flying instructors were called in to advise the passenger, named only as “John”, on how to bring the plane down and a RAF Sea King helicopter was scrambled to provide assistance.

One of them, Roy Murray, said: “I think without any sort of talk-down he would have just gone into the ground and that would have been the end of it.”

The passenger and pilot were the only people on board the Cessna 172 aircraft, which had taken off from Sandtoft Airfield 25 miles (40km) away.

It is believed the two men had flown to Skegness and were returning to Sandtoft when the pilot collapsed.

Speaking at a press conference earlier, Mr Murray said the novice flyer did four circuits of the airport before landing at about 19:30.

He said: “The gentleman was called John, that’s all I knew.

“We had to get him to do two to three circuits. The last one was not very good so we told him to go round again and on the fourth one he managed it.

“He did a beautiful landing in my opinion.

“He was calm. He was answering the calls I made to him quite professionally.

“I would not be frightened to fly with him.”

Eyewitnesses described seeing sparks as the plane landed.

Stuart Sykes, who saw the aircraft land, said: “It came down with a bump, a bump, a bump, hit the front end down, I heard some crashing and it’s come to a halt.”

Two incoming flights were delayed while the aircraft was removed from the runway.

‘Nothing short of phenomenal’

Richard Tomlinson, a friend of the pilot and his passenger, told BBC Radio Sheffield the passenger was “nothing short of a hero”.

He said: “For somebody who is not a pilot but has been around airfields and been a passenger on several occasions to take control is nothing short of phenomenal.

“The man is nothing short of a hero.”

Mr Tomlinson, himself an amateur pilot, said of the man who died: was a “very experienced pilot”.

He added: “He had been flying for many years.

“Only this week I was sat having a cup of tea and airfield banter [with both men].

“They were both very funny gentlemen to have a conversation with.

“It is very, very sad news.”

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9-Year-Old Arrested for Stowing Away on Airplane

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That 9-year-old Minnesota boy who slipped through security and hopped a flight to Las Vegas is no stranger to child protection investigators, who say he has a history of sneaking into a water park and was recently arrested after allegedly stealing a car, according to an e-mail obtained by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
And it turns out that his mother works at the airport where he began his journey, a source close to the situation said.
The boy’s father told CNN affiliate WCCO that his son has had issues in the past.
“I don’t have an angel, OK. I have a 9-year-old,” he said. “To me, he’s got a behavioral problem.”
The father, who WCCO did not identify, said the family has been unsuccessfully trying to get help for his son for years.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Janine Moore, area director of the Hennepin County Human Services and Public Health Department, wrote in an e-mail to agency administrators and County Board members of the boy’s “pattern of behavior,” which has included hanging out at a Bloomington, Minnesota, water park and blending in with a large family to slip through without paying.
She describes him as a “challenging” child, according to the Star Tribune.
The newspaper reported that there is an investigation into whether the boy’s mother, who works at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, helped him fly to Las Vegas. The newspaper did not report who was conducting that investigation.
The boy’s father told WCCO that his wife reported their son missing on Thursday morning — a day after they last saw him, leaving the house to take out the trash.
“We’re not bad parents. We didn’t think nothin’ of it,” the father said. “We thought he was at his friend’s house.”
The father said he never expected his son would take the light rail from their North Minneapolis neighborhood to the airport and sneak onto an airplane.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “You’ve got so (many) security checks at these airports. How can you let a 9-year-old sneak past security, get on the plane, without anyone stopping him, questioning him or anything?”
Authorities have been trying to figure out how the child was able to slip past security and airline gate agents and board Delta Flight 1651 without detection.
The boy went through security with other passengers, the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement Sunday, but officials were still trying to figure out how he did it — and how he then got on the flight Thursday.
Delta reviewing video to determine how boy hopped flight to Vegas
Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for the airport, said that surveillance video shows the boy briefly talking to a Delta gate agent before the flight.
A short while later, the video shows that the agent became “distracted,” and that’s when the boy was able to sneak through and board the plane, he said.
Hogan said the crew “became suspicious of the child’s circumstances” during the flight. Crew members got in touch with authorities in Las Vegas and turned the boy over to Child Protective Services, Hogan said in a statement.
The boy, who remained in Nevada, will be returned to Minneapolis because that is “where issues will be addressed,” a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN. It was unclear when he would return to Minnesota.
The agency did not immediately return a CNN telephone message Tuesday seeking comment on the Star Tribune report.
According to the Star Tribune, Moore said child protective workers have investigated the boy’s family life four times.
“The reports have been inconsistent and there have been no injuries to the child; however, there is a pattern of behavior,” the newspaper quoted her as saying in the e-mail.
The newspaper said Moore wrote that the boy was arrested two weeks ago after allegedly stealing a car. The e-mail didn’t indicate whether the boy was the driver of the car or a passenger, the newspaper reported.
The newspaper also said Moore wrote that the boy has alleged that his mother has held a knife to his throat and that she was “stabbed and died.”
“Typically, staff can tell if a child is lying, but with this child, they are unsure what is going on,” the newspaper quoted the e-mail as reading.
Delta on Monday said it was reviewing surveillance video. Flight crew members alerted authorities to the boy.

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