Coffee spilled from a pilot’s tray table into a key radio set forced a Condor Airlines A330 to abort its flight mid-Atlantic last week and make an emergency landing at Shannon, Ireland. The flight was headed from Frankfurt to Cancun.
The coffee spilled into the captain’s audio control panel (ACP), used to communicate with crew and passengers. Soon after it began to smoke and emit burning smells. An hour later, the co-pilot’s ACP also failed and became so hot that a button on its panel melted. That left the two pilots unable to communicate with each other and the diversion to Ireland was ordered.
At Shannon, the units were replaced and the flight resumed, with a stop at Manchester to pick up new crew.
So, why was the coffee on the tray table? It appears that the airline had switched to smaller cups that slips too far into the pilots’ cup-holders to be picked up again, so crew have gotten into the habit of using the table. The company has now “solved” the problem by requiring lids for the cups.
