Source: Simon Hradecky | www.avherald.com

A British Airways Airbus A380-800, registration G-XLEH performing flight BA-56 from Johannesburg (South Africa) to London Heathrow,EN (UK) with 429 people on board, was climbing out of Johannesburg’s runway 03L when the crew stopped the climb at about FL280 reporting smoke in the cockpit as well as in the cabin. The airport immediately assigned runway 03L/21R for the emergency and kept the runway sterile. The aircraft returned to Johannesburg for a safe landing on runway 21R about 50 minutes after departure. The aircraft stopped on the runway, the crew shut the engines down and requested emergency services, who had been deployed in full force affecting operation of the airport (fire cover available), to check their aircraft. Emergency services reported everything on the aircraft looked okay. The aircraft was towed to the apron after about 45 minutes.

According to information The Aviation Herald received the occurrence was a “fume event”. A number of members of the crew were complaining about dizziness and nausea and were sent to be assessed at a hospital. The aircraft had had a fuel leak about one week prior to that occurrence.

Passengers reported there was a burning odour in the cabin that became stronger and stronger, the crew told them about a hydraulics and landing gear problem.

Another passenger reported later that there had been smoke in the cabin obviously due to a fire/fault in the cabin, the flight crew instructed cabin crew to prepare for immediate landing, hence cabin crew did not attend to passengers. The passenger observed a trail of vapour of the wing tips, obviously the aircraft was dumping fuel. After landing the aircraft remained on the runway for a long time – during that time the people in the cabin began to feel unwell and hot due to lack of oxygen/air conditioning.

The aircraft remained on the ground in Johannesburg for about 30 hours, then departed for the flight again as flight BA-56D and reached London with a delay of about 30:20 hours.