Summary
- Fumes and a foul odor resulted in crew members feeling sick on Frontier Airlines flight F9-990, prompting an emergency response team to meet the plane upon landing.
- Despite a thorough investigation, no toxic fumes or odor were found on the aircraft, prompting the team to clear the plane for passengers without incident.
- The Airbus A320 aircraft in question is being evaluated by the maintenance team to determine the cause of the odor, and it has since resumed its regular flight schedule.
On Thursday, November 9, a Frontier Airlines flight landed with a complaint of fumes throughout the cabin. The flight, which was registered as F9-990, had crew members stating that they felt nauseous from fumes with an odor. The smell was potent enough that when the aircraft landed at its destination, the local fire department met the plane to test for poisonous or toxic gases.
Incident of fumes
The flight departed Denver International Airport (DEN) at approximately 10:50 local time, approximately 10 minutes earlier than scheduled. Shortly after the plane’s departure, flight attendants in the rear of the cabin began complaining about the odor and started to feel sick. The crew members told the captain, but the aircraft continued to its scheduled destination. No passengers were affected by the fumes, only crew members and the fumes were contained to the back of the aircraft.
Photo: Frontier Airlines
Just under two hours later, the aircraft landed at San Antonio International Airport (SAT), which was approximately 13:51 local time. Upon arrival of the aircraft in San Antonio, an emergency response team led by the San Antonio Fire Department (SAFD) began investigating the aircraft. The rescue team included a hazmat team, in case any fumes that were found turned out to be toxic. The SAFD Public Information Officer, Joe Arrington, spoke about the incident in a statement to My San Antonio. Arrington said,
“Originally, we were called for a strange odor on a plane and people feeling bad, so we sent a whole lot of people — hazmat, rescue, airport rescue, all these things out there — but once the plane landed, we realized there was no odor.”
The response team began testing the aircraft for toxic fumes but did not detect any odor. Shortly after arriving, the hazmat team cleared the plane. This was completed by an emergency team wearing hazmat suits utilizing various monitoring tools to detect any dangerous fumes. Four of the crew members were evaluated by medical personnel but were not transported to the hospital. All passengers deplaned safely, and no injuries were reported. Arrington also stated,
“As a precaution, we responded because it came in to us as a foul odor on a plane, so that ramps up our response. But once we got everyone down, there were no negative readings of anything on the plane.”
The aircraft in question
Frontier Airlines said that the aircraft in question was being evaluated by the maintenance team in order to determine what possibly caused the odor in the back of the aircraft. The aircraft was an Airbus A320 registered as N303FR. The plane was received by Frontier Airlines in October 2016 and is just seven years old. It is also painted in the Poppy the Prairie Dog Livery.
Photo: Joe Kunzler | Simple Flying
After the aircraft landed in San Antonio, it was kept there overnight for further evaluation. The next day, on November 10, N303FR flew F9-9203, which is a scheduled route from SAT to DEN. On November 11, the aircraft returned to its regular schedule, conducting five flights throughout the day across the continental United States.
Source: My San Antonio