We waited for JetBlue‘s response to this incident, which occurred yesterday. Flight 1781, with 89 passengers onboard, departed Orlando at 12:34, scheduled to arrive at 1:35. A fire broke out in the left-hand side engine, and the plane made an emergency landing at its destination of Nassau, Bahamas. The plane taxied under its own power out of the way, and passengers were evacuated by emergency slide.
This comes only three days after another Embraer 190 flying from JFK to Rochester, NY as Flight 654 declared an emergency due to smoke in the cabin and had to return to JFK(the actual plane in question is pictured right, courtesy of a Flickr search). A loss of communications forced the pilots to communicate using the plane’s transponder.
These incidents may be unrelated, or connected, but certain it is something to watch. Two fire situations on two same model aircraft in the same week…