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A US-BOUND jet made an emergency landing at Dublin Airport this morning after the crew reported they had suffered a cracked windshield over the North Atlantic.
Egypt Air flight 987 took off from Cairo at around 2.15am Irish time destined for Newark in the US state of New Jersey. There were 287 passengers and crew on board.
About five hours after departure, the Boeing 787-900 Dreamliner jet flew over Ireland and commenced its oceanic crossing.
Later, when the jet was about 1,000 kilometres northwest of Mayo, the flight crew declared an emergency reporting that a cockpit wind had sustained damaged. It’s understood that a crack appeared in one of the aircraft’s windshields.
The flight was cleared to turn around and descend from 36,000 to 15,000 feet and divert initially to Shannon Airport.
At one point, air traffic controllers in Ireland could not make radio contact with the Egyptair flight and asked two aircraft in the area to relay communications. It’s understood the Egyptair aircraft was outside radio coverage for Ireland at the time.
Communication was later established with the emergency aircraft and the crew confirmed they were declaring a Mayday and wished to divert to Dublin Airport.
An emergency plan have been implemented at Shannon which involved notifying the Munster Regional Communications Centre (Fire), the HSE, National Ambulance Service and An Garda Síochána.
Units of Clare County Fire and Rescue Service from Shannon and Ennis stations; ambulance paramedics and Gardaí were also mobilised to Shannon Airport to support the airport’s own fire and rescue service.
Soon afterwards however, the emergency at Shannon was stood down when it was confirmed that the flight crew would be diverting to Dublin Airport instead.
The flight landed safely in Dublin at 11.10am and was met by airport fire and rescue crews. The jet was accompanied by fire crews to its parking stand where engineers were standing by to inspect the cockpit window.
The emergency aircraft is expected to remain grounded in Dublin until repairs can be completed. It’s understood the airline will send a replacement aircraft to Dublin later to take the passengers onto their destination.
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Do they not put their thumb up against the windscreen when they meet another plane and the road is only after been freshly tarred and chipped??
@Ron Burgundy: I think only Irish pilots do that.
@Ron Burgundy: or just turn on the wipers.
Was on a Delta flight to Atlanta years ago. A critical instrument failed about an hour in so had to return to Dublin. We were the last flight out so when we returned we were not allowed disembark as the US boarder control area was closed. After 3 or 4 hours we had to sign a waiver to get off to stretch legs. Eventually, a replacement instrument arrived from Holland and we were allowed board. As the cabin crew were preparing for take off two lads got up and started taking luggage from the overhead thinking they had arrived in Atlanta. They had taken sleeping tablets and slept through the whole ordeal. Their faces for the next 10 hours was priceless.
@MonkeyTarmac: Waiting to take off from Rome to Dublin,we’re told light missing from one of the wings. 11pm,can stay on plane and get refreshments,or go to now closed terminal. Engineers will arrive at 6am to fix problem. Stayed on plane. 6am,maintenance truck arrives. Guy takes out a large step ladder,climbs up and replaces bulb. Gives thumbs up,and after passengers brought back from terminal,we take off. I coulda done that!
@MonkeyTarmac: last flight out???? The delta flight departs mid morning to KATL. Tell me you you’re making this up as you go.
@alan scott: LOL, are you for real? You need to get out son.
@MonkeyTarmac: exactly
I recently took an airline to court for misplacing my luggage. I lost my case
@Frank T Murphy: @LarryBetts was a joke! Ha ha ha ha!!!
Another Boeing. And only four years old.
That company is a mess.
@Alan OConnor: I agree completely but surely a cracked window is also a maintenance issue so I don’t think Boeing can solely be blamed. But in the last few years Boeing has certainly put profits and share price ahead of safety.
@Martin Mongan: how does one do maintenance on a windshield ?
@ronan mcdermott: how is any maintenance done? Do you think they just build a plane and the airlines wait for something to fall off? Everything should be inspected regularly for signs of stress of fatigue
@Alan OConnor: could be anything that would have cracked the windshield. Most probably nothing to do with the aircraft manufacturer.
But I’m waiting to see the explanation on the Aviation Herald avherald(dot)com, then we’ll know
@ronan mcdermott: replace it after 5 years maintenance done
@james rowan: They should have had windscreen cover
@ronan mcdermott: With “sillycone” i’d say.
To the god awful journalist who write this piece yet can’t be bothered to google Egyptair 787-9 picture instead of a 737 800
@alan scott: sad little man
@Keith: how does that make him sad ?
@sleepy joe: it could have been a major disaster killing a few hundred people and he’s giving out about the pane being the wrong picture (sad life)
@Keith: Do you mean the pane in the plane? Just be thankful that the rain on the plane falls mainly over Spain.
@Keith: He was only looking for a picture of the plane. Not the pane of glass that cracked.
@Keith: actually he was giving out about the plane that the pane was in
@Keith: What you wrote has zero got to do with my comment. A missing pane won’t bring down an airliner that’s in your imagination. Let’s have a civil debate but then again this is the Journal, previous commenter asked you a simple question of why im a sad little person and went of on a completely different subject, this tells me you don’t have a clue as to why said I’m a sad little person and trolling just to cause arguments.
@sleepy joe: ignore him just a troll
@alan scott: I meant plane
@Keith: major disaster lol
The daily mail is looking for people so they can scaremonger like they usually do
@alan scott: if they were over the Atlantic and the windscreen smashed what would you call that ?
How many claimed asylum without passports when they got off the plane
Munster joinery are on their way with a replacement window.
Smashing. Just smashing.
Thankfully nobody was hurt.
Very common on all aircrafts. There are five sheets of glass on the windscreens, the outer layer of glass cracks, but still safe… It wasn’t an emergency, so less of the dramatic journalism… They just divert to the nearest airport to have a new one fitted…..
@Blue Moon: Fair enough. Good to know. They certainly wouldn’t find a spare in the Atlantic Ocean, and if they did, sure where would they park to swap screens?
I think many of us were hoping for a video clip of that 787 landing. Back to Google so; I’ll post a link if I see it.
@Blue Moon: if it wasn’t an emergency why did the crew call may day, scrapping plans to land in Shannon in favour of Dublin landing?
Boeing is at it again, what a mess. The plane can’t hold the pressurisation cycles and it’s only 4 years old
@J Ven: A qualified technician from the journal.ie investigation team. I must inform the authorities at once that you found the fault lies with Boeing. Just give me a copy of your masters degree in structural engineering to me and I will forward to Egyptair and Boeing.
Must be the same suppliers as the Cyber truck windows
Ain’t that a good one?
The silver lining – at least it wasn’t the windshield reporting a cracked crew!
If they were fully comp, the lad in the van would have met them on the runway. Maybe he wasn’t available at Shannon, had to go to Dublin.
@If you’re: That must be Gavin from Autoglass you’re talking about. He once had quick look at my wife’s crack.
@Karl Paul: In and out in five minutes or less. That’d be gash dash Gav.
This happened twice in one month on Chinese owned airbus aircraft not to long ago.
I don’t know what a cracker mortgage is
Aircraft windscreens are 3 layer laminates. If one cracks, while it is clearly visible, it is still perfectly safe. Especially if it gets clearance to descend slightly. It happened about 2 months ago on a Japan Airlines plane. It descended and kept going.
‘’A cockpit wind had sustained damage’. Words is good sometimes.
There has been a series of those incidents reported by National Geographic where the windshield cracks due to overheating of the windshields heating mechanism on 747s. In several cases the windshields blew out entirely and in one case a pilot was sucked out of the plane resulting in the plane nosediving to earth with the loss of all on board.
The problem is that in the USA the Federal Aviation Regulator is dominated and funded mainly by Boeing and is therefore almost powerless to enforce its findings and rules.
Ahhhh…. Boeing
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