A Russian flight was forced to make an emergency landing soon after takeoff because of a suspected fire on board, Russian media outlets reported on Thursday. It turned out that the incident was caused by porridge that was burning in an electric furnace.
The Aeroflot flight was due to take off in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi and land in St. Petersburg.
The cabin crew alerted the captain about smoke in the passenger liner’s kitchen almost immediately after the Airbus A320 with 152 passengers aboard took off from Sochi airport. Soon after, the smoke coming from an electrical furnace spread to the main cabin.
The crew quickly turned the stove off and the captain contacted air traffic control to request an immediate emergency landing at the departure airport. Emergency crews were sent to the flight strip and the plane reportedly landed around ten minutes later.
It turned out that the smoke was caused by porridge getting into the furnace’s heating spiral due to the fact that its packaging had not been properly sealed. The furnace was replaced and the aircraft was cleared for operation, but the passengers were left waiting five hours for another flight.
This week saw a number of incidents that forced passenger liners to make emergency landings.
On Wednesday, a flight from Moscow to the Russian Siberian city of Novosibirsk was forced to land due to a sick passenger who required hospitalization. That same day, a flight from the US to Chile had to request an emergency landing in Panama when the pilot suffered medical issues. The pilot died shortly after landing despite receiving urgent treatment.