After a fire started on an Air China plane, firemen rushed onto the runway and, within minutes, sprayed an entire aircraft with foam. Unfortunately, it was the wrong aircraft.
On Thursday at Fuzhou Changle International Airport in China, pilots on a Fuzhou Airlines flight reported sparks coming off the engine of an Air China plane taxiing ahead on the runway. Firefighters arrived in minutes to spray foam on the aircraft that reported the incident -- not the one that was actually on fire.
After about two minutes, control tower officials contacted the firemen to tell them that they were spraying the wrong plane.
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As soon as they realized the mistake, firefighters took care of the Air China plane, which had passengers aboard. Their flight was delayed 10 hours and the firefighting snafu delayed 30 flights, shutting down the runway for 90 minutes, the airport said in a statement.
Plane's right engine on fire at taxiing. Fire trucks foam the wrong jet in E China's Fuzhou airport. No casualty pic.twitter.com/6Gh8wRjUdx— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) December 10, 2015
The Fuzhou aircraft was the same make as the Air China plane -- a Boeing 737-800 -- and apparently had exhaust fumes coming from its tail, the airport said.
No one was harmed in either incident.
Air China reported that the sparks were "normal" and did not harm the aircraft, and it will continue to fly.