Westjet plane diverted to Vegas

The strong smell of burning plastic forced a WestJet flight from Phoenix to Calgary to be diverted to Las Vegas Tuesday night.

Flight 1401 was carrying 101 passengers when the odour was detected in the cabin and flight deck and forced the plane to land in Las Vegas, said WestJet spokesman Robert Palmer.

“The flight did not declare an emergency but requested the presence of emergency vehicles as a precaution, and it landed in Las Vegas without incident,” Palmer said in an email sent Wednesday.

Maintenance technicians inspected the Boeing 737 but could not duplicate the smell. However, ground crews were unable to hook up the aircraft to the ground power unit ahead of departure, Palmer said.

“At this point in the evening, due to the delay, the crew reached its maximum allowable duty-day and therefore, we put our guests and crew in hotels for the night,” Palmer said.

WestJet maintenance staff were sent to Las Vegas with parts required to repair the aircraft. The plane returned to Calgary Wednesday afternoon.

Janet Shostak, who was on the flight returning home to Calgary after a mother-daughter shopping trip in Phoenix, said she’s happy everyone arrived safe and sound.

But she criticized the airline for failing to keep passengers informed about what was wrong with the plane.

“There was never one person to say what was going on with the plane,” she said.

Once they landed in Las Vegas, passengers were startled to see fire trucks and police cars greeting them at the airport, she said.

They were told they were getting on the 9 p.m. flight to Calgary. But just before boarding, they were told that flight was cancelled after maintenance crews “blew a fuse” while making repairs, she said.

Passengers were then made to wait several hours for the crew to arrive the following morning before flying out of Las Vegas, she said. “They took the right precautions. The issue was the sheer lack of communication.”