Don't know if this was posted already, so if it was, my apologies.

FEB 1 2000

SIA plane fire alert

A SINGAPORE Airlines (SIA) Airbus 310 made an emergency landing at Beijing airport yesterday when an alarm signalled that one of its engines was on fire.

An SIA spokesman said that Flight SQ811 from Beijing to Singapore returned to the capital about an hour after take-off in the morning.

Following a fire warning alert which showed that an engine could be on fire, the captain shut down that engine and returned to Beijing airport where the aircraft landed safely, he said.

The aircraft carried 106 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members.

The spokesman said all the passengers were later transferred to another flight, SQ801, which left Beijing at 4 pm and landed in Singapore at 10.54 pm yesterday. As for the affected plane, the spokesman said that the ground engineers had found no sign of fire in the engine.

The plane, which was later certified safe for flying, also returned to Singapore last night.

The captain was following standard operating procedures by returning to the airport when he saw the fire alert, the spokesman said.

But SIA would be conducting a full investigation into the matter, he added.

On Saturday, an SIA Airbus 310 skidded on landing in bad weather and overshot the runway at the Kuching International Airport. No one on board was hurt.

-- Steve Baxter (chicoqh@home.com), February 04, 2000

Answers

Teh plane returend to Singapore .... WITHOUT PASSENGERS of course. IT was an Airbus, and I am almost sure a 310 like this one, that went down off the African coast ...... will check and maybe report.

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-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.cellrelaytower), February 04, 2000.