Our crew began to assemble in the lobby of the Barcelona hotel. Outside on the street, pilots and flight attendants from the arriving flight collected their bags from behind the jitney bus that had driven them from the airport. They shuffled into the hotel. One of the arriving flight attendants murmured something about the electronic cockpit door having started a fire en route from JFK. Wonderful …
I was conducting an IOE (initial operating experience) trip with a captain who was re-qualifying on the 767/757 after a six-year tour on the Airbus A300. We raised our eyebrows at the interesting news. After consultation with the inbound pilots, the “fire” had transformed itself into a simple burning smell. Apparently, the electronic door-latch system had issues. The crew disabled the system via the system switch.
