A spilled cup of coffee on the flight deck of an Airbus A330 knocked out the flight crew’s audio control panels (ACPs) and touched off a chain of events that led the crew to divert their planned trans-Atlantic flight to Shannon, Ireland.
The U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said, in its final report on the Feb. 6, 2019, serious incident, that after the flight left Frankfurt, Germany, bound for Cancun, Mexico, the flight crewmembers were served coffee in cups without lids, as was typical for the operator’s aircraft on this route.
The commander placed the coffee on his tray table while he completed some required tasks, and the cup was knocked over, spilling coffee onto the commander’s lap and onto his ACP. Although the spill on the center cons…
