Saturday, July 6, 2019
Virgin Atlantic flight 138 en route London from New York made an emergency landing in Boston after a small fire broke out in the first class cabin on Thursday night. All 217 passengers on board were evacuated safely. A phone charger is believed to be the cause of a fire. Passengers described smelling burning and smoke filling the cabins of the Virgin Atlantic Flight 138. The jet was diverted to Boston airport where one passenger was treated for a ‘smoke-related complaint.’
Passengers said there were a fire and were told that there will be an emergency landing shortly. Once they landed they were told there is a fire in first class. He added that firefighters boarded the plane to check things out but said ‘shouldn’t the priority be to get everyone off the plane first?’
Virgin Atlantic Airways, in a statement, said that an incident onboard the flight led to the diversion. No details have been given on the reason behind the fire. They claim that their cabin crew are trained to a high standard and acted quickly to deal with this situation.
As per a passenger, they could smell smoke coming from the first class cabin “not even 30 minutes” after the plane took off from the John F. Kennedy International Airport on Thursday evening.
Virgin Atlantic said it is ‘currently investigating’ what led to smoke appearing in the cabin. A spokeswoman said: ‘The safety and security of our customers and crew is always our top priority and we are currently investigating to fully understand the circumstances. ‘We’d like to thank our customers for their patience as we work with them to provide local accommodation or to rebook alternative flights to their final destination.”
