Smoke in the Rear Galley on a Full Night Flight
You are the senior cabin crew member on a narrow-body aircraft cruising at 35,000 ft with 168 passengers and 5 crew. Ninety minutes into a four-hour night flight, a crew member reports a sharp burning-plastic smell and light grey smoke drifting from the rear galley, strongest near the coffee maker and the waste bin compartment below it. The smoke is thin but visible in the cabin lighting. Two passengers in the last rows are coughing. The flight crew has been alerted by interphone and acknowledges. The cabin is dark, most passengers are asleep, and the seatbelt sign is off. You have one halon extinguisher at the rear station, one water extinguisher forward, and PBE units stowed in the forward and rear overhead bins.
1. What are your immediate priorities and in what order, and who does what among the five crew?
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Priority order is fire/smoke control, then communication, then passenger management, then continued monitoring.
- Confirm and locate. The crew member who found it keeps eyes on the source and calls out the exact location; nobody opens a bin or panel blindly, because a smouldering bin can flash over when air is introduced. Feel the bin door for heat before opening.
- Fight it early. Grab the nearest halon extinguisher (rear station), don PBE if the smoke is already irritating eyes and throat, and discharge at the base of the fire. If the source is a waste bin, the correct technique is to close the flap, keep the bin closed, and use halon through the flap aperture rather than emptying the bin onto the floor.
- Assign roles. One crew member fights the fire, one brings the second extinguisher and PBE as backup and stands by, one takes the interphone to keep the flight crew updated and to receive instructions, one moves passengers away from the affected zone and keeps them seated with belts on, and the fifth maintains a head count and watches the cabin for spread.
- Tell the flight crew what you actually see, not just "smoke": location, colour, density trend, smell, whether flames are visible, and whether extinguishing appears to be working. That drives their decision on diversion.
- Cabin lighting and PA. Bring up night lighting so passengers can see exits and crew, and make a brief, calm PA asking passengers to remain seated and to report any smoke they see.
- Post-fire watch. Even after the flames are out, keep a crew member at the location with a second extinguisher for the rest of the flight; smouldering lithium batteries and bin fires can reignite. Bag the used extinguisher and any burnt material for the investigation.
2. The flight crew asks whether they should divert. What information do you give, and what is your recommendation?
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Give them the facts they need to judge, framed as trend rather than a single snapshot:
- Source: identified or not. An identified, extinguished galley appliance fire with no spread is very different from smoke of unknown origin.
- Trend: is the smoke thinning, static, or thickening after the first extinguisher? Thickening or recurring smoke after discharge means the fire is not out.
- Symptoms: two passengers coughing. Report whether that is resolving with fresh air or worsening, and whether anyone has needed oxygen.
- Systems: whether the smoke is entering the cabin ventilation and whether the affected galley power has been isolated (pull the circuit breaker or switch off the appliance).
- Time and terrain: you are 90 minutes into a four-hour flight, so the nearest suitable airport may be behind you. That is a flight crew calculation, but you can tell them the cabin situation is stable enough to give them a few minutes to decide.
Recommendation: if the source is confirmed, the fire is out, and the smoke is clearing, continuing with a fire watch is defensible. If smoke persists or recurs after one halon bottle, or if anyone's breathing is affected, recommend immediate diversion and prepare the cabin for a possible emergency landing: brief the crew, secure the galley, and be ready to move passengers away from the affected zone.
3. After landing, an investigation asks why you did not use the water extinguisher on the galley fire. Was that correct?
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Generally yes, with a caveat. Halon is the first choice for a galley electrical appliance fire because it interrupts the chemical reaction and does not conduct electricity; water on an energised appliance risks shock to the user and can spread burning material. The water extinguisher is the correct choice for a Class A fire such as paper or fabric that is not involving live electrical equipment, and it is useful for cooling and preventing re-ignition once the power is isolated.
So the defensible sequence is: isolate power to the appliance, use halon on the source, and keep the water extinguisher as a follow-up for cooling and for any Class A material that caught fire. If the investigation establishes that power was already isolated and the fire was in ordinary combustible waste, using water would also have been reasonable. The key point for the report is that you matched the agent to the fuel and the electrical status, and that you never opened a closed bin or panel in a way that fed air to a smouldering fire.