Federal investigators say an electrical system malfunctioned, the autopilot quit and some radio communications were disrupted aboard a Frontier Airlines plane shortly before the pilots made a fiery but safe emergency landing in Las Vegas earlier this month.
No one among the 190 passengers and seven crew members was injured Oct. 5 on Flight 1326 from San Diego, according to a preliminary report released Monday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
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Federal investigators say crew members detected fumes of burning rubber, a chemical or light smoke, the cockpit crew donned oxygen masks and declared an emergency about 19 minutes before the plane landed. Display screens, radio and transponders stopped functioning while the pilot and copilot conducted emergency procedures, the NTSB said.
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Witnesses reported flames erupted and tires on the Airbus A321-211 aircraft burst as it landed at 3:10 p.m., trailing a plume of smoke down a runway at Harry Reid International Airport, according the report. But the fire was quickly doused by firefighters. Passengers were not immediately evacuated.
Video recordings and photos included with the report showed fire and smoke billowing from the main landing gear before the aircraft came to a stop on the runway. Damage was limited to landing gear, wheels, tires and brakes, the report said.
Crew members said they were surprised to learn from firefighters that a fire had been extinguished in the right engine. “There had been no engine fire indications in the cockpit,” the report said.
Aircraft data monitors identified a fault in a fan that cools aircraft control systems about the same time the odor was detected, according to the report.
The flight data recorder stopped recording about nine minutes before the plane landed after electrical power was cut according to emergency procedures, but the cockpit voice recorder remained operational. Both devices are being studied by the NTSB in Washington. A final report could take about a year to complete.
KLAS-TV in Las Vegas reported that several passengers have filed a lawsuit against Frontier Airlines, alleging they were “stranded inside the sweltering smoke-filled aircraft for nearly an hour" before passengers were evacuated.
