El Al flight makes unscheduled landing in Ireland

An El Al flight from Tel Aviv to New York made an emergency landing in Ireland on Monday after passengers smelled something burning and feared there was a fire aboard the flight.

Flight 007 departed Ben Gurion International Airport on Monday morning with 320 passengers and crew, but six hours into the flight, passengers alerted crew to a burning smell in the cabin. One passenger told Channel 2 that the pilots immediately turned off the electricity.

Half an hour after the smell was first detected, the pilots safely landed the Boeing 747-400 at Ireland’s Shannon Airport. No one was injured.

Passengers were taken to local hotels for several hours until a replacement aircraft arrived on Monday evening to bring them to New York’s Kennedy Airport.

This was the second incident in recent months involving a Boeing 747-400 in the El Al fleet. In early July, Flight 318 from London to Tel Aviv was forced to return to Heathrow Airport and make an emergency landing 20 minutes after takeoff when one of the plane’s four engines caught fire.

According to Channel 2, El Al owns six Boeing 747-400 planes. It is the largest plane that El Al operates and the second-largest passenger plane in the world.

The aircraft flown by El Al is considered to be somewhat outdated, with the average plane in the fleet having been in operations for 14-18 years.