Cathay Pacific Flight CX884 Asks Passengers to Put on Life Vest for Emergency Landing

‘The most terrifying moment of my life’: Cathay Pacific passengers describe panic on flight CX884 as smoke forces emergency landing

Passenger Ethan Williams took this photo before the jet flew to Anchorage. 

Photo: Ethan Williams

Source: www.scmp.com

Passengers on a Cathay Pacific flight have spoken of their terror as the aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing at a military airport in Alaska after smoke was detected on board.

Genevieve Cousineau, a 25-year-old English teacher from the US based in Beijing, described the incident as “the most terrifying moment of my life” as Los Angeles-bound flight CX884 from Hong Kong dramatically changed course.

Writing on Facebook, she said she awoke to the crew announcing an emergency landing, with “people running around, pulling life jackets over our heads, many crying, practicing the brace position. We were over the ocean and our plane smelled strange".

“Everyone was in a panic, like, ‘oh my God, this is really happening'. People were putting life jackets on, the cabin crew were showing us the brace position and helping us practice,” she wrote.

“This is when people started to freak out.

“You could just see the fear in people’s eyes. Some people were trying to figure out the life jackets, can we keep our shoes on, what are we supposed to do…?”

Passengers wait to fly to Anchorage to change planes for Los Angeles. 

Photo: Ethan Williams

However, Cousineau wrote that some passengers stayed composed enough to take selfies after the landing.

“I saw a ton of people taking life jacket selfies but I just wanted that thing off of me!” she said.

She added that she sang songs to herself to stay calm and tried not to think about the novel she had just been reading - Wreckage by Emily Bleeker, in which a plane crashes.

Cathay Pacific said today that a problem with a cooling fan created smoke, which led to the emergency landing.

The airline tweeted that a “preliminary inspection indicates that an equipment cooling fan below the cabin floor near the cargo compartment had failed”, so there was smoke in the cockpit, and the captain decided to make an emergency landing. 

Later, Cathay added that the aircraft, a Boeing 777-300ER, was finally “declared serviceable” after the technical problems that led to the smoke, adding that a team of staff flew from Vancouver to Anchorage to attend to passengers and another team would greet them when the plane arrives in Los Angeles.

The flight is expected to arrive at Los Angeles International Airport at 4.28am (7.28pm Hong Kong time).

Passenger Bruce Kirch, a frequent flyer, said that although there were a few tense moments when the crew told everyone to prepare for a water landing, all ended well.

A view over the wing before the plane took off from the Shemya US military base. 

Photo: Ethan Williams

Kirch, a 55-year-old businessman who flies between Hong Kong and the United States with Cathay around eight times a year, said he had never experienced anything so alarming on a flight. He said he had survived earthquakes, left Tokyo the day before the massive tsunami of 2011 and was in New York during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

He said the first sign of trouble was when the pilot called the lead flight attendant to the flight deck.

Around 10 minutes later, “everybody was running around, putting soda bottles away, closing everything in a most urgent fashion”, he said. “Something was definitely amiss.”

Another five or 10 minutes later, the crew announced there would be an emergency landing and told passengers to put on their life vests and get in the brace position.

This relief jet was sent by Cathay to take the passengers to Los Angeles. 

Photo: Bruce Kirch

Kirch looked at the interactive map on the in-flight entertainment system and realised the plane was still flying over the Pacific Ocean, fearing it could be forced to land on water.

“My heart was beating; I didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “It was quite unnerving but what can you do except hope for the best?”

About five minutes before touching down, the crew told passengers the plane had reached a landing strip so would not have to land on water.

The five-year-old plane landed at the Eareckson Air Station on the Shemya US military base on the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, a key refuelling stop for aircraft travelling across the Pacific Ocean during the Korean War in the 1950s. Only a few servicemen are stationed at the base, which is closer to Russia than mainland Alaska.

Kirch said there was a small landing strip with no facilities, so the passengers stayed on the plane. The plane later took off and brought the passengers to Anchorage, where they were kept in a holding area. The crew brought passengers snacks and sandwiches, and there were water and toilet facilities, he said.

A relief flight, which left Hong Kong at 3.45am arrived in Anchorage this afternoon. It took off at around 2.40pm Hong Kong time, taking the 276 passengers and 18 crew members to Los Angeles.

Kirch said that given the circumstances, the pilots, crew, and other passengers handled the situation very well.

Passengers wait in a holding area. 

Photo: Bruce Kirch

“I’d say the flight crew through this entire ordeal has been unbelievably excellent. I’m sure they were as nervous as [we were],” Kirch said.

He said there was a group of 20 to 30 high-school pupils from either Hong Kong or mainland China travelling with guardians, but they stayed calm. Some passengers became frustrated after sitting in the holding area for a few hours, however, he said.

Kirch said he had sent emails and heard back from his girlfriend and family members, and he did some work in Anchorage thanks to internet access there.

“I just wish I could go get a pizza and a beer,” he said.

Cathay told passengers they would each receive a cash card worth US$300 (HK$2,325) when they landed at Los Angeles and apologised for the inconvenience caused by the emergency landing.

Images courtesy of Twitter: eth_will