Hot de-icer blamed for ‘smoke’ on plane
Sunwing jet makes emergency landing
An excess of de-icing fluid that burned off during takeoff caused a Cuba-bound flight out of Ottawa with 170 passengers aboard to make an emergency landing Friday.
Sunwing Airlines confirmed there was no fire on Flight 326, which took off at 6:32 a.m. from the Ottawa International Airport. But passengers heading to the warm beaches of Varadero were unaware of that when they screamed “fire” at the sight of what they thought was smoke coming from the air vents of the Boeing 737-800.
What they actually saw was vapour, said Daryl McWilliams, Sunwing vice-president of media relations. An excess of fluid on the plane’s surface vaporized during the flight and entered the cabin through a vent for the auxiliary engine, he explained.
Unaware of this at the time, though, the fear on the plane was palpable, say passengers.
A flight attendant ran up the aisle with a fire extinguisher hunting for flames. One woman was hyperventilating. Another man thought, just for a moment, that everyone on board would die. The fear subsided as the pilot circled back and returned to the runway just before 7 a.m.
“For a minute, I thought that was it, this is how it’s going to all end,” said Marc St. Jacques, who was heading south for a week’s vacation.
In freezing conditions, aircraft are de-iced with glycol, an alcohol-based liquid that prevents the buildup of ice on the wings and control surfaces that can affect the handling of the aircraft.
“When the aircraft got back to the gate, there was quantities of this fluid still on the plane,” McWilliams said. “During takeoff, (some of) that fluid vaporized.”
Shortly after the plane took to the air, St. Jacques settled in for a nap, thinking of the warm weather that awaited him in Cuba. He didn’t sleep.
“I put my head back and then I heard people yelling: Fire! Fire! Fire!” St. Jacques said. “I opened my eyes and I thought everyone was celebrating, like ‘OK, we’re going to Cuba,’ but the smoke was everywhere.”
He described white smoke that had a sweet smell. Another passenger echoed his comments, saying the odour was similar to car-engine coolant.
“It wasn’t a smoke that made us cough or hurt our eyes,” said Pascale Senechal, who was heading to a resort in Varadero for a week.
She was not worried during the emergency, largely because she assumed there was no fire. Plus, the oxygen masks were not deployed, giving her further assurance she would be all right. But not all passengers remained as calm.
“I could hear one woman behind me hyperventilating,” Senechal said.
Describing the landing, she said it felt a bit rushed with passengers flung forward quite hard as the plane contacted the runway. It was not a typical touchdown, she said.
An airport fire crew greeted the plane, but no flames or smoke were visible from the ground. Ottawa Fire Services were called in to assist, then quickly called off. Airport fire crews escorted the plane back to the terminal, where passengers were able to leave, said Krista Kealey, spokeswoman for the airport.
“We’ll debrief with everyone involved, just to see how everything went,” she said.
Sunwing said a full investigation would be conducted to make sure the aircraft was safe for flight.
Despite the rough start, many passengers were happily standing in line at the Sunwing check-in station around 9 a.m., waiting for a flight scheduled to leave at 12:30 p.m.