CY flight turns back after smoke in the cockpit

A CYPRUS Airways (CY) flight to Stansted with 148 passengers was forced to return to Larnaca shortly into the flight departed on Wednesday when one of the cockpit cooling systems failed.

“I saw smoke coming out of the cockpit,” one British passenger on the flight told the Cyprus Mail yesterday. “It happened a few minutes after take off and the pilot announced that the plane would be returning to Larnaca because of a technical problem with the cooling system in the cockpit.”

Air industry sources at Stansted airport told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that it seemed the incident had been kept out of the media on Wednesday. Drawing a parallel with two incidents involving a Helios Airways plane at the weekend, the sources said it appeared the CY incident was a lot more serious, yet the government had not called a special civil aviation meeting to discuss it as it had done with Helios.

The private carrier had experienced problems in its air system during a flight to Heathrow on Friday and had returned to Larnaca. Two days later a similar problem occurred with the same Boeing prompting the government to intervene on Monday.

“It seems like unfair handling of a similar situation,” said the sources.

However Transport Minister Haris Thrasou made it clear this week that although technical problems are a regular occurrence with most airlines, a meeting had been held on Helios due to the fact that it was the same plane that experienced problems in such a short space of time, and considering the Helios crash in August that killed 121 people.

Cyprus Airways spokesman Tassos Angelis denied both the reports from London, and the passenger testimonies that the cockpit had filled with smoke.

“There was a minor technical problem when the cooling fan stopped working, which resulted in some fusion,” he said.

“It was nothing serious but the pilot decided to bring the plane back because he wasn’t far from base.” Angelis said it was the company’s policy to be cautious.

“It was not a major incident.” He said the problem was fixed and the flight resumed two hours later.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.