Sri Lanka-bound plane forced to turn back to Melbourne after smoke fills cabin

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A Sri Lanka-bound industrial plane had to make an emergency touchdown at the Melbourne airport after smoke was noticed contained in the cabin.

The Sri Lankan Airlines flight UL605 landed on the Melbourne airport lower than an hour after departing from Tullamarine on Monday night.

Passengers on board the Airbus A330-30 reportedly noticed and smelled smoke within the cabin and extra coming from the cockpit, which prompted the captain to declare an emergency inside half an hour of take off.

The plane circled within the air for nearly an hour earlier than returning to the Melbourne airport round 7.20pm after the emergency squawk code of 7700 was sounded. The code signifies that the plane wants precedence dealing with from air site visitors management to land due to an emergency.

“In line with Melbourne Airport procedures, a local standby was declared, with emergency services responding as a precaution,” the airport said in a statement.

The aircraft landed safely and without incident and the passengers disembarked normally, it added.

Sri Lankan Airlines has pointed to a “technical concern” for the incident, which was being “presently assessed” by a team of technicians.

Dennis Bunnik, a YouTuber who happened to be on the flight, said he was filming a review when “I might really feel about half-hour out of Melbourne that we have been beginning to descend”.

“He mentioned the captain then made the announcement: ‘put together for touchdown’. The air aspect of every part labored nicely, the emergency autos, all of that half labored rather well,” he told 9News.

“It’s taken an excellent couple of hours to kind of work out what’s occurring, whether or not we might fly by means of on to Sri Lanka tonight or whether or not we wanted to go to motels,” he said. “Bit of confusion, however ultimately it was determined we’re staying in Melbourne.

In a submit on X, he praised the crew for dealing with it “very well”, including that the captain suggested that there was a difficulty with air-con.