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[textarea]Report released on Thomas Cook fuel leak Gatwick landing
Pilots managed to land a holiday flight safely at Gatwick Airport after losing more than a tonne of fuel from an engine leak, according to an air accident repor. The Thomas Cook Boeing 757-200, with 226 passengers and eight crew on board, was flying to Gatwick from Turkey in June last year.
As a result of the incident, the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said considerable amounts of fuel lay on the Gatwick runway. All movements at the airfield were halted for a period after the plane landed, to allow the runway to be cleared.
A fuel warning sign had come on as the plane entered French airspace about two hours and 20 minutes into the flight. The captain estimated about 2,860lb (1,300kg or 1.3 tonnes) of fuel had leaked from the left engine - a Rolls-Royce RB211. He considered diverting to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport but decided to alert Gatwick and the plane was cleared for an immediate approach.
The Gatwick fire chief advised passengers to evacuate using the right-hand side slides only ‘due to the considerable amount of fuel spilled on the runway, taxiway, left engine and brakes’. Engineers later traced the source of the fuel leak to a pipe coupling at the fuel pump in the left engine.
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Pilots managed to land a holiday flight safely at Gatwick Airport after losing more than a tonne of fuel from an engine leak, according to an air accident repor. The Thomas Cook Boeing 757-200, with 226 passengers and eight crew on board, was flying to Gatwick from Turkey in June last year.
As a result of the incident, the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said considerable amounts of fuel lay on the Gatwick runway. All movements at the airfield were halted for a period after the plane landed, to allow the runway to be cleared.
A fuel warning sign had come on as the plane entered French airspace about two hours and 20 minutes into the flight. The captain estimated about 2,860lb (1,300kg or 1.3 tonnes) of fuel had leaked from the left engine - a Rolls-Royce RB211. He considered diverting to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport but decided to alert Gatwick and the plane was cleared for an immediate approach.
The Gatwick fire chief advised passengers to evacuate using the right-hand side slides only ‘due to the considerable amount of fuel spilled on the runway, taxiway, left engine and brakes’. Engineers later traced the source of the fuel leak to a pipe coupling at the fuel pump in the left engine.
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