Inside the Hawaiian Airlines flight to Sky Harbor diverted by smoke
A commercial flight carrying nearly 300 people from Hawaii to Phoenix was diverted on Monday following the detection of smoke.
Carrying 278 passengers and 10 crewmembers, Hawaiian Airlines Flight 36 departed Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu at 10:38 p.m. with nonstop service to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, according to information from the airline and the Federal Aviation Administration. About three hours into the flight, smoke from a malfunctioning fan was observed in the Airbus A330 aircraft's cabin, according to the airline and the FAA.
The smoke dissipated after the fan was turned off, but the captain declared an emergency "out of an abundance of caution," the airline said. The condition was later downgraded to "urgent" status for priority handling for its 6:14 p.m. arrival at San Francisco International Airport, the airline noted.
Among the passengers was 31-year-old Scottsdale resident Alyssa Crijns who, along with her husband, visited the island of Oahu for four days for a wedding. Crijns told The Arizona Republic she witnessed people who were in need of medical emergencies, adding ambulances and fire trucks met the plane when it landed in San Francisco.
The airline, however, said there were no medical emergencies.
Crijns said passengers were detecting the smell of smoke for 15 minutes with flight attendants running down the aisles to locate the source before an announcement over speakers was made by the flight crew about the situation.
"It was, of course, very frightening and I don't feel like we were given very much information by the airline," Crijns said.
The plane landed at the airport with no injuries reported, according to the airline. The aircraft was inspected by airline personnel and the flight arrived at about 11:30 p.m. at Sky Harbor, the airline said. "Safety is our priority and we apologize to our guests for the inconvenience," the airline said in a statement.
The FAA will investigate the incident, the agency said.
Crijns, meanwhile, thinks Hawaiian Airlines should compensate passengers with air miles, which she said happened after an emergency aboard a major airline flight recently.
On Dec. 18, a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Phoenix to Honolulu suffered turbulence resulting in 11 people being seriously injured and another nine being sent to the hospital.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Hawaiian Airlines flight's Sky Harbor destination diverted by smoke
