Firefighters sprayed foam on wrong plane during engine fire emergency

The engine of an Air China passenger aircraft caught fire at Fuzhou Changle airport in southeast China on Thursday morning, but firefighters sprayed foam onto another aircraft waiting nearby.



The right-hand engine of a Boeing 737, Air China Flight CA1822 to Beijing, suddenly caught fire at 8am when taxiing on the runway as it was about to take off, the nation’s flagship carrier said. The captain of the following Fuzhou Airlines FU6577 noticed the fire first and informed the Air China captain. The Air China aircraft closed down the engine and then called fightfighters.



Eight fire trucks arrived within two minutes. However, the vehicles surrounded the Fuzhou Airlines aircraft and began spraying foam onto that plane. When the firefighters realised they had picked the wrong plane, they moved on to deal with the Air China aircraft. The Fuzhou Airlines aircraft was by then covered with foam. The airport authority then closed the runway to deal with the aftermath.



All the passengers with the Fuzhou Airlines flight, that was scheduled to fly to Jinan in east Shandong Province, had to get off the plane since the aircraft was covered with foam and had to be washed to pass a safety inspection before it could fly again. Flight CA1822 later took off. “It turned out to be a normal situation as aircraft engines spark sometimes and it would not be a threat to flying safety,” Air China said.