Over the weekend, a Edelweiss Airbus A340 operating a flight between Cartagena & Zurich suffered smoke in the cabin, forcing a diversion to Barranquilla.
Such an event was observed and heard from passengers onboard the quad-engine jet to the Swiss destination.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
WK92 – Cartagena-Zurich: Barranquilla Diversion…
Edelweiss flight WK92 is a routine scheduled flight between Cartagena and Zurich.
The affected rotation which diverted to Barranquilla was operated by HB-JMD.
As per data from Planespotters.net, HB-JMD is a 20.4 year old Airbus A340-300 aircraft.
It started out life with SWISS back in December 2003, and was handed to Edelweiss in September 2018.
Furthermore, of the A340-300 variant, the airline has five of them in the fleet, with the average age standing at 20.5 years.
Edelweiss flight WK92 departed Cartagena at 2241 local time on March 24.
The aircraft initially began to climb out to Zurich, which was it’s final destination.
Reporting from The Aviation Herald states that a loud bang was heard onboard.
Furthermore, a heavy smoke began to fill the cabin, which was as a result of a defect in the air conditioning system.
The decision was made by the pilots to divert to Barranquilla, where the aircraft landed safely without further incident.
Aircraft Still Grounded: Unclear When Fixes Will Be Made…
Data from RadarBox shows that HB-JMD is still in Barranquilla at the time of publication.
It is unclear when the aircraft will be fixed, following the catastrophic failure of the #2 air conditioning packs.
For the time being, this aircraft will remain out of service until the relevant technicians can fix the problem.
For now, all eyes will be on how long the aircraft will remain grounded.
Click the banner to subscribe to our weekly Emergencies and Incidents newsletter.
Click the photo to join our WhatsApp channel so then you can stay up to date with everything going on in the aviation industry!
