Eznis Airways flight delayed after propeller fire

Several recent problems with safety have occurred in the Mongolian aviation sector, but Civil Aviation Authority of Mongolia administrators have allegedly hidden them according to Unuudur Newspaper. On Sunday, October 6, an SAAB-340 airplane of Eznis Airways took off at 6:30 p.m. in route of Ulaanbaatar-Dornod but landed after 30 minutes due to a problem with a propeller. Two passengers gave a short interview about the flight.

-You were passengers of a Ulaanbaatar-Dornod flight on Eznis Airways on October 6. Exactly what fault occurred?

-Prior to taking off, the flight was delayed twice, which caused a big inconvenience for passengers. We were actually scheduled to take off at 1:30 p.m. according to the official schedule. But it was announced that the flight was delayed until 3:30 p.m., as the airplane hadn’t arrived in time due to bad weather. After a while, the flight was delayed once again to 6:30 p.m. We waited again and finally took off around 7 p.m. But the pilot said the airplane was faulty after around 30 minutes of flying.

-How did he explain the fault?

-I presume a part of one of the plane’s propellers was on fire, as flames were coming out of the left propeller during the flight. The airplane itself wasn’t stable. The light in the passenger cabin was cut and passengers couldn’t even move or make a sound for extreme fright.

-Did it land instantly?

- It felt like the airplane stopped in midair. The pilot carefully turned the airplane to Ulaanbaatar and landed. It seemed to take a long time to get back. Fortunately, our pilot was highly experienced in his job and we landed safely.

-You say passengers were very frightened. Did the pilot or flight attendants calm you down?

-As soon as the airplane landed, one of the flight attendants said, “What has just happened? A fire was coming from propeller. In my case, I will never get on this airplane again.” Flight attendants are responsible for calming down passengers, but some of these flight attendants were acting so unprofessionally and fulfilled their duty poorly.

-How many passengers were there in the airplane?

-There were 18 of us. When the passengers switched airplanes and were preparing to head to Dornod Province, three of us even returned our tickets for fear that the same thing might happen again. All of the passengers were so afraid. Though a doctor came to us after landing, the doctor didn’t check on us. After complaining about it repeatedly, the doctor barely checked passengers and went away.

-Did Eznis Airways officially apologize to passengers?

-Even Eznis Airways and flight officials were not concerned about us. It is quite typical for them to be careless when it comes to domestic flights.

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