Society
Airliner lands safely after false fire alarm
By Hou Lei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-03-24 18:09
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A China Eastern Airlines passenger plane landed safely in Zhengzhou airport late Tuesday after experiencing a false fire alarm, China's portal website sina.com reported Wednesday.
China Eastern said the airliner, flight number MU2454, was traveling from Beijing to Wuhan when an alarm sounded, indicating that there was a fire in the baggage hold.
The flight crew then carried out safety procedures and later landed the plane safely at Zhengzhou airport, according to sina.com's report.
The plane, a Boeing 737-800, took off from Beijing at 18:14 Tuesday evening.
After checking the plane, the carrier said the baggage hold did not catch fire and a "technical problem with the fire detection equipment caused the false fire alarm", sina.com's report said.
China Eastern says the false alarm is common glitch and that the crew handled the problem correctly.
A passenger surnamed Ni said the plane jolted forcefully just before touching down and "many elder passengers hugged together and comforted each other"，according to Wednesday's newspaper Zhengzhou Evening News.
"Most passengers got off the plane in a hurry even without taking their luggage," he said. Nobody was injured, the newspaper reported.
