Airbus A330 vs. A Cup of Coffee: Plane Forced To Divert After Spill

It was a normal flight for Condor Airlines when things went very wrong. The flight of the Airbus A330 carried 326 passengers and 11 crew, according to the airline. It was on its way from Frankfurt to Cancun, and was a few hundred miles west of Ireland over the Atlantic when the flight attendant brought the crew some java. It was standard practice for Condor to serve coffee without lids. After putting the drink down on his tray table---remember that the Airbus has side sticks---and getting busy with navigation duties, it happened. The pilot spilled the hot drink, mostly on himself, but a little on his console, too.

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No big deal, right? Wrong. It turned out to be a huge deal. The spill immediately took out the left side audio panel, disabling cabin announcements and VHF comms, as well. And then the coffee started to mix with electronics and began emitting an electric burning smell, which is the last thing you want to happen over the North Atlantic.

The captain made the call to divert to Shannon, Ireland, and successfully landed despite considerable communications challenges. Once on the ground in Ireland, maintenance pulled the audio control boxes and downloaded their data---yup, the coffee was to blame. It caused a short, which liquid will do when applied to digital electronics, and killed off the audio control panel.

No other systems were damaged, thank goodness, and the plane was quickly returned to service.

Condor Airlines announced as a result of the incident and subsequent investigation that it was going to require pilots to use the cup holders and for the cups to have lids---sensible advice for all pilots.