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An unusual smell in the plane cabin of a long-haul Lufthansa flight to Toronto caused an emergency diversion to Manchester earlier this week.
Lufthansa flight LH470 took off from Frankfurt, Germany for an eight-hour flight to Toronto, Canada, at 3pm local time on 26 September.
Just over an hour and a half into the flight, while flying over Loch Lomond in Scotland, the Boeing 747 made a sharp U-turn and diverted its course south.
A Lufthansa spokesperson told The Independent that the flight, with 371 passengers on board, “turned back over Scotland for safety reasons”.
“The reason was a smell in the cabin. An emergency landing was declared to secure priority landing rights, and the aircraft landed safely in Manchester.”
The plane arrived in Manchester at 4.20pm.
“Since the plane landed overweight due to fuel, it was inspected by the fire department as a precaution. The passengers were then able to exit the plane normally,” the spokesperson added.
Lufthansa accommodated the passengers in hotels for the night while it prepared a replacement flight for the following day.
Passengers then flew from Manchester to Toronto on Sunday, 27 September at 5.40pm on a different plane, and landed in Toronto at 11.52pm local time.
Lufthansa said that after inspecting the plane on the ground in Manchester, its maintenance team identified and resolved the cause of the smell, but did not confirm its origin.
The plane eventually flew from Manchester to Frankfurt on the evening of 28 September.
“We apologise to our guests for this situation and the disruption to their travel plans. The safety of our passengers and crew is our top priority at all times,” the airline added.
Mysterious smells have previously caused planes to make unexpected landings mid-flight.
Passengers on a Swiss International Air Lines flight spent the night in Brussels after their original plane was grounded because of an unusual odour coming from the forward galley, where the crew prepare snacks and drinks.
Meanwhile, in March, passengers travelling on a 14-hour British Airways flight to London complained of a “foul smell” after a woman passed away on board.
A woman in her 60s died shortly after take-off on a flight from Hong Kong to London Heathrow.
Following the decision to store the body in a heated galley towards the rear of the plane, passengers claimed they could smell a bad odour.
The plane did not land early, however, as the situation was not considered an emergency due to the passenger already having passed away.
Guidelines from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) state that when a person has been declared dead, they should be moved to an isolated seat, put back into their own seat or, at the crew’s discretion, into another area not obstructing an aisle or exit.
Read more: Dubai Israel-bound flight forced to divert after fight between pilots
