Aer Lingus Flight EG-93H diverted to Daytona Beach yesterday after the crew declared smoke in the cockpit.
Smoke in the cockpit
An Aer Lingus UK Airbus A330-300 took off from Orlando International Airport yesterday at 18:39 local time. Less than 15 minutes after takeoff, smoke was reported in the cockpit, and the aircraft turned around and diverted to Daytona.
The crew contacted Air Traffic Control and declared mayday, and ATC suggested that the crew divert to Daytona Beach. The crew agreed with ATC’s suggestions, and just 43 minutes after taking off with 240 passengers and ten crew, the aircraft landed in Daytona Beach.
As the aircraft was on final approach, the pilots reported that the smoke was disappearing and downgraded their mayday alert to pan pan, meaning that there was an emergency but that it was not life-threatening. Because of instability, the pilots had to go around before approaching runway 07L again.
According to flightradar24, the aircraft is still on the ground.
Simple Flying has contacted Aer Lingus requesting additional information about the incident and has not received a response at the time of publication.
What happened to the passengers?
A Twitter account named Ivan Roche shared a video of the Daytona Beach Airport terminal, stating that passengers were waiting to hear from the airline on whether the aircraft would be fixed or if passengers would be placed in hotels.
An AerLingus tweet replying to someone who had family on flight EG-93H said that passengers were transported back to Orlando and then given accommodations early this morning.
Today, at 10:06 local time, another passenger asked AerLingus for additional information regarding their travel to the UK, stating that they were stuck in the hotel lobby without knowing what was happening. Aer Lingus replied that it was awaiting an update and would let the passenger know as soon as one was available.
The same passenger later replied that they were on a bus headed to Miami because other passengers began boarding buses. The passenger claimed they had received no communication from Aer Lingus regarding the next steps and followed other passengers.
G-EILA
The Airbus A330-300 in last night’s incident is a twelve-year-old aircraft registered to Aer Lingus UK. Recently. The aircraft has been used on Aer Lingus’ routes between Manchester and Orlando and Manchester and Bridgetown.
According to planespotters.net, Aer Lingus UK only has two aircraft in its fleet, one Airbus A321, and one A330.
