SMOKE ONBOARD Lufthansa A340 | Priority Landing at JFK

29/APR/2023
Lufthansa A340 performing flight from Munich to JFK was descending when the pilots reported they had been told of smoke in the cabin and would need priority for landing.
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[@airodyssey]

0:25 The moment the Lufthansa pilot said "priority", and the controller interpreted it as "emergency", it reminded me of the crash of Avianca flight 052, the plane that ran out of fuel while approaching New York in the early 1990s. I guess New York ATC took no chances this time.

[@ghostrider-be9ek]

LH could have declared PAN alert as well.

[@mendaliv]

@@ghostrider-be9ek does PAN even have meaning in US civil aviation, or is it automatically treated as mayday?

[@Boodieman72]

@@mendaliv Mayday and Pan are different

[@jusezaba8557]

​@@mendaliv a PAN call is an urgency. Meaning that the aircraft has some issue but it isn't life threatening or it is "manageable" for the moment, however it could deteriorate any second; so things like ATC priority and fire sevices are on alert. A mayday call on the other hand is an emergency, an issue that currently may be endangering the life of it's occupants and it has full attention and priority by ATC and others

[@bobschuon5908]

I really like the controller declaring for them as soon as he heard the word "smoke". In an in-flight fire event, the clock is running, and who knows for how long? If this was a serious fire, rather than a possible false alarm, this could have made the difference. It sounds like it didn't even delay the traffic much.

[@Bl0ckHe1d]

How to jump the landing queue…like a pro! 😂

[@christianwuethrich2222]

Yes, but please make some paperwork afterwards.

[@chadcasale4216]

Love the NY controllers. They just ooze confidence and a take charge attitude. They may talk fast and have a funny accent (I’m from Long Island) so I sound just like these guys but they get it done.

[@SlipShodBob]

I know this is serious and properly handled but it reminds me of the Cabin Pressure episode where they want to land quick and Douglas goes, "I smell smoke." Well that and the one with the smoking passenger and the fire extinguisher

[@jonathanbrady5243]

"But I DON'T smell smoke in the cockpit!" - Whoosh - "... How about now"

[@pigybak]

Kudos to LH for still flying the 340.

[@radiosification]

I want to fly on one just to have flown on an A340 before they're all retired, but I don't think they fly from my city (London)

[@TeddyBearGaming999]

@@radiosification you are correct, there are no more scheduled a340 flights to London since Swiss and Iberia retired theirs

[@radiosification]

@@TeddyBearGaming999 thanks

[@deltafox757]

Actually Swiss returned a few A340s! HB-JMI, HB-JMH, HB-JMA. They will be gone in 2024 though.

[@BigWhoopZH]

And the 747-8. And the A380.

[@tokyochannel2020]

Postman what a cool callsign.

[@NicolaW72]

Thank you very much for picking this incident up!🙂👍

[@tommyb1two3]

By far my favorite airport to monitor. Communications are so concise and there's always something happening. Earlier today there was a helicopter reporting in and the controller was like "Wait, who are you?" then there was a pilot who had trouble understanding instructions from ATC cause they were talking so fast 😅

[@joshislandmusic]

Just another day at the office vibes 😂

[@luschmiedt1071]

Always interesting hearing DLH, the are the only ones I know who start their read backs with the call sign

[@EmotionalWeather]

We kinda learn it like that here in Germany. Did my PPL 2 years ago and I usually always start with the callsign.

[@N1120A]

It is a good practice to assure you haven't missed the call sign, which is required with all readbacks.

[@luschmiedt1071]

@@EmotionalWeather yes but that is mainly a german thing, I have to look up if ICAO has specified something 🤔

[@joshilini2]

Lufthansa needs to fix this issue.

[@luschmiedt1071]

@@joshilini2 what issue? That is deliberate, they state their call sign first so the controller know immediately who is talking.

[@dogeman4959]

I feel like I heard this pilots voice on Vatsim before since I always fly to or from Munich Airport at Vatsim.

[@ksbear2]

The day after this incident, I was on a LH A346 from ORD to MCH. A pax used a vape pen in the lav. Flight attendants got very angry and were reading this gal the riot act when I went to the lav shortly after. Not something you want to play around with.

[@luschmiedt1071]

Uh and a postman - eurotrans "mixup" as well. I guess we will hear these for a while 😅

[@N1120A]

It's like Norshuttle and Rednose

[@ObeseCaligula]

Happy Mother's Day 💐

[@AEMoreira81]

Oh Lordy! On the rare day when only the ILS approach to 13 Left is available. This happens maybe 3-4 times a year.

[@VASAviation]

I made a special ATC video for the Final sector on how they work vectors to that ILS. Seen it very few times.

[@Geoff69420]

Commercial aircraft flying over the Verrazzano and Brooklyn Bridges is not something which is seen every day

[@AEMoreira81]

@@Geoff69420 -- The ILS to LGA Runway 4 goes near the Verrazano.

[@Geoff69420]

@@AEMoreira81 Yeah but those planes would be flying more or less parallel to the bridge. I'm talking about T-crossing the bridge, and for that matter flying above the FDR and the Brooklyn Bridge. Oh, and the state fixed the typo in the bridge's name a few years ago. It's "Verrazzano" with two Zs now; the double Z is pronounced as it is in "pizza"

[@uditabhattacharya2824]

@@VASAviation what's the video title?? i want to see!

[@RioJudy]

Vaping should be caught and punished

[@EdOeuna]

It’s been banned in Australia, and rightfully so.

[@david-stewart]

​@@EdOeuna 😂

[@othername1000]

Keep smoking safe and legal!

[@jonathanbott87]

I'm amazed planes haven't installed cameras in the cabin yet (obs not in the lav)

[@robertl426]

Very well handled. What's interesting is they gave their fuel in tons/tonnes, however a metric tonne is different to an imperial ton. As they are a European Airline flying a European aircraft, I wonder which measurement of fuel they were using when giving that info to ATC.

[@iaf22]

the aircraft shows fuel in Tons ... so they just say what they read... if jfk wants it it lbs , they can convert it themselves as pilots has other priorities than doing a conversion to adapt to units most of the worldndont use 😏

[@andreasu.3546]

They're within 12% of each other. Would the difference matter in any way?

[@robertl426]

@@andreasu.3546 Probably not, but when you consider the amount of fuel an airliner carries, 12% can be a lot more. The info is for the fire services after all. I'd rather things be clear than ambiguous when it comes to aviation emergencies. Edit: I've often heard British airlines give the fuel in Kilograms rather than pounds, hence my question on tons vs tonnes.

[@TonyNaggs]

For more fun imperial tons are also different between Britain (2240 lbs, long ton) and the US (2000 lbs, short ton)!

[@markmaki4460]

@@TonyNaggs Yup. Avoirdupois, not imperial.

[@munchycrunch1504]

Is it just me or does the ATC controller @ N90 K sound like Kennedy Steve?

[@uditabhattacharya2824]

he's retired though!

[@ErulianADRaghath]

I swear, some people has no consideration for other's safety. I fly to Asia quite often, and twice we had to divert because some dude can't hold his urge to smoke and trips the smoke alarm in the washroom. 😠😠

[@AaronShenghao]

There are old planes with ash trays in some of the planes I had flown. So it's quite understandable for some passengers who don't speak a lick of English (or whatever language used on the preflight briefing) and used to disregard no smoking signs to misunderstanding the message. I even heard those people tried to smoke on highspeed trains' toilets, tripping smoke detectors and automatic emergency breaks...

[@HalfShelli]

Was it a Qatari ambassador?? 😁

[@ErulianADRaghath]

@@HalfShelli No, it was a middle-aged Asian man with bad taste 🤣

[@Jukka85]

Of course it had to be some dude ripping on a vape 😆Couldn't wait to get on ground first

[@JansViews]

Would a vape set off alarms?

[@ronenfefer6162]

@@JansViews probably yes

[@yooein]

​@@JansViews Even steam from water can set off photosensitive smple alarms.

[@douglasphillips1203]

That's an expensive nicotine hit.

[@Mizai]

@@douglasphillips1203 bag iofdr

[@EdOeuna]

There’s a big distinction between someone vaping or smoking versus an actual fire/smoke, and the response from crew is hugly different too.

[@clqudy4750]

"The aircraft taxied to the gate" and the AHole passenger who was blowing phat vape clouds onboard was dragged off and locked up, never being allowed to fly again, right? RIGHT?!

[@NicolaW72]

No.

[@clqudy4750]

@@NicolaW72 That figures... welp, now they're free to ruin it for everyone on another flight! Yay.

[@AySz88]

Plot twist: aerosol can exploded in someone's luggage. (...well no, who knows, but it's pretty useless to get angry over an assumption!)

[@jackbriant7800]

Relax my guy, why would they drag him off unless he wasn’t willing moving?

[@oldcarnocar]

damn i hope so!

[@ceaselesscomic]

A couple questions for those who might know: 1. In these situations, it seems like the fuel remaining is usually calculated quite quickly, yet the number of 'souls on board' seems to often take longer for the pilots to provide to ATC when asked (1:07) -- it seems like that's an unchanging number from the start of the flight (unless someone died during the flight), so why is it that it takes a while to provide? 2. At 2:15, when the (approach?) controller says he'll "let the tower know", how does he let a controller on another frequency know? Does he type a message? It seems like an approach controller couldn't leave his frequency to pass that information along.

[@chrisk.500]

1.) The remaining fuel is usually right infront of them on the ECAM display (on an A340). While the number of passengers can be found only in the papers (like the load sheet). Since you don't really need the exact number of pax for actually flying the aircraft, they'll have to look it up in the papers, which often takes a minute or two. 2.) By phone or system message.

[@saxmanb777]

Fuel is right there on their display. Souls is a number we usually write down but sometimes we forget so we just have to dig into the paperwork to look. Controllers are always talking to each other. Usually it’s a quick phone call where they just push a single button and it lights up on the other end.

[@spelldaddy5386]

1. The fuel is right on the display in front of the pilots, whereas they have to go digging in their paperwork to find the souls on board. 2. Different ATC facilities communicate with each other via landline. While these videos are edited for time, there are often periods of dead air. Or if the active controller is too busy, an assisting controller will pick up the phone. It is common for them to communicate

[@joshilini2]

1) With the fuel, in the US, they always ask for it in Pounds but Lufthansa replied with the weight in tonnes.

[@johnny88j9]

They were checking to see if the flight attendants had ejected out the door the guy vaping...

[@Teddini]

I had customers on board that flight! Damn they didnt even tell me about it!

[@raygale4198]

Hopefully the no fly ever list just got one name longer.

[@WilliamOfDetroit07]

Am I the only person who thinks the controller sounds a lot like Kennedy Steve?

[@Alveesspanola]

Yes

[@steven-nb6rt]

Is there a NO SMOKING sign in the aircraft for passengers.

[@yooein]

It's in front of every seat and in every lavatory.

[@AaronShenghao]

​@@yooeinyeah but I also know people often just pretend they don't see them.

[@mishibird]

Why does Tower refer to that one aircraft as Eurotrans but it responds with Postman? Which airline is this anyway?

[@jetranger7803]

Eurotrans / Postman belongs to the cargo airline DHL which was landing behind the Lufthansa: :-)

[@EmotionalWeather]

DHL Express(?) and the callsign got changed recently

[@matibucholski]

BCS changed from "Eurotrans" to "Postman" a few weeks ago. Good luck kicking the habit of saying "Eurotrans". I get it right about half the time.

[@SomeRandomUserName960]

It is "European Air Transport Leipzig" which is a Deutsche Post/DHL subsidiary and operates the DHL Aircraft. They changed their callsign from EUROTRANS to POSTMAN in April this year

[@mishibird]

@@jetranger7803 thanks. But shouldn’t they be using a consistent callsign?

[@hannonik]

Wheres the link to the full video?

[@VASAviation]

Available very soon

[@ai-d2121]

Isn’t that a song by Deep Purple or something?

[@johnpooky84]

"Smoke on the Water".

[@im_agine852]

Aaaaaannnnnnnd ? What happened after that?

[@craig7350]

The guy continued vaping setting off smoke detectors as he made his way through the terminal.

[@williamedwards1528]

They flew happily ever after

[@saxmanb777]

The world may never know.

[@AaronShenghao]

Pilots and controllers have to fill some papers. ARFF can go back to their station and continue to do whatever they were doing before the bells rang.

[@johnpooky84]

4:45 "Plane to BUZON".

[@mkkm945]

Smart job. Complain about vaping, get in early, save a ton of fuel for the company. Das German efficiency ja!

[@RomNYC]

I smoked a lot back in the day, thank God I quit. Heck, my father would get a separate seat so he could smoke away from me and my mom. That was the early 90s. But vaping on a plane in 2023, you are just down right stupid.

[@user-ik4br3nk2w]

so thats how they cut the line

[@johnpollard4158]

Google "Lufthansa smoke in cabin". It seems to happen a lot.

[@RS-ls7mm]

Must have been some very bad vape if everyone thought the plane was on fire.

[@RS-ls7mm]

@PlasmaStorm73 [N5EVV] Was the joke too complex?

[@Derderderheisst]

Where's the untrimmed Video?

[@VictorHahn]

Very disappointed with Lufthansa for not immediately and actively declaring an emergency when there was even a whiff of smoke. Far too many planes have crashed and far too many people died from onboard fires to take this lightly in any way.

[@icollectstories5702]

Apparently, there were no souls on board.😱

[@othername1000]

Keep smoking safe and legal

[@deakhanani]

😂😂🤣