No fire on flight to Washington, SAA says
South African Airways (SAA) has denied that the cockpit of one of its airplane caught fire.
The flight scheduled to leave Johannesburg to Washington D.C. via Accra in Ghana on Sunday.
Canadian singer Deborah Cox was left shaken by an incident on an SAA plane at the weekend.
The singer took to Twitter to vent about her unhappiness adding there was a fire started in the cockpit, causing an emergency landing.
So disappointed in South African airlines. After 3 hours delay on the plane to take care of a damaged door, they still insisted on flying the damaged plane which later had to turn back around to Accra.
— Deborah Cox (@Deborah_Cox) August 5, 2019
Concern for our safey? None.
Will no answers as to when another plane will be coming in, or whether or not it will be a new plane. Passengers disgruntled. Kids vomiting. Scared. Shook. Terrible way they handled the situation. @flysaa
— Deborah Cox (@Deborah_Cox) August 5, 2019
In a statement released Tuesday, the national carrier explains the three-hour delay .
"Whilst on the ground in Accra, there was a delay which lasted for approximately three hours after an aircraft door was damaged by a catering truck operated by SAA’s service provider at that airport. The aircraft door was fixed, inspected and found to be in working order to operate."
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The struggling state-owned company says cockpit crew noticed a technical problem while the aircraft was mid-air.
"Which was detected in the cockpit. The operating crew followed standard operating procedures in cases of emergencies throughout and landed the aircraft safely as soon as possible.
"The incident led to an operational decision that it was undesirable to continue to operate the flight to Washington D.C."
SAA says there is no information connecting the damaged door to the technical problem experienced in the cockpit while the aircraft was airborne.
The aircraft is still on the ground in Accra with technicians trying to establish the cause of the problem.
@flysaa I hope y’all do right by @Deborah_Cox and all of the crew and passengers. The trauma of an in flight fire is traumatic enough... then to be told to -BRACE GET YOUR HEADS DOWN⁉️She’s an American treasure we expect to get our vocalist back in one peace #SouthAfricanairways pic.twitter.com/OgNT0gmHmZ
— that’s a good look (@BigMike825) August 5, 2019