Airline crashes, déjà vu?
A recent news item may have reminded air travelers about an unexpected danger: coffee?
Yes, really.
A popular book on the early days of commercial air flights (made into a movie in 1964) was “Fate is the Hunter” by Ernest Kahn. The plot: a federal investigator not satisfied with the “pilot error” verdict of a crash by a pilot friend that killed virtually all passengers finds that the cause was instead a cup of hot coffee that burned some internal wires.
Flash to now: a pilot’s spilled coffee accidentally triggered a hijacking alert and caused a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany, to make an unscheduled stop in Canada, reports the AP.
A Transport Canada report says United Flight 940 was diverted to Toronto late Monday and landed safely at Pearson International Airport.
An emergency was declared and Canada’s defense department was notified, but that with the help of United dispatch staff the flight crew confirmed it to be a communication issue and not a hijacking.
The report says the US Federal Aviation Administration reported that United’s corporate office had indicated that the pilot "had inadvertently squawked a 7500 code after spilling coffee on the aircraft’s radio equipment, which interfered with the communications equipment."
The 241 passengers and 14 crew members were unhurt and rebooked on another flight.
When asked about coffee triggering the diversion and mass delay, United Airlines avoided the subject, according to wire services.
By David Wilkening
David
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