RyanAir Flight 296 is a flight between Dublin Airport and London Stansted Airport, Essex. The flight was marred by an incident on February 27, 2002 when an engine caught fire after landing at London Stansted Airport, causing the evacuation of the aircraft. RyanAir's handling of the evacuation led to an inquiry by the UK Air Accident Investigation Board who severly criticised the airline for several potentially fatal errors. There were, however, no casualties.
Flight 296 left Dublin, Republic of Ireland at around 4.00 pm, reaching London Stansted Airport at 5.15 pm. Upon landing, airport crew noticed smoke pouring from engine number two of the Boeing 737-800 jet used by RyanAir for this flight. Fire services at Stansted rushed to the scene and the pilot was ordered to evacuate the aircraft. A serious of errors and failings by RyanAir crew occured during the evacuation, leading to the investigation.
Firstly, RyanAir aircrew struggled to open the emergency doors. The investigation by the UK Air Accident Investigation Board discovered that the aircrew were given insufficient training on opening doors in an emergency situation. During training, it was not made clear that doors are more difficult to open in an emergency due to the need to activate the air chutes. Also, RyanAir aircrew evacuated six passengers onto the wing of the aircraft where the engine fire was raging. Firefighters were forced to order the passengers back onto the aircraft to use other emergency exits.
Media reports on the investigation also focused on RyanAir's training methods which include: aircrew training taking place in Eastern European countries; aircrew having to pay for their own training (which was stated to cost in the region of £2,000); and aircrew having to pay for their own uniforms and airport security passes.