Lufthansa: Flight from Frankfurt to Dubai has to divert and emergency land in Rhodes over 'electrical smell'

A Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Dubai was forced to divert and make an emergency landing in Rhodes yesterday (Monday 18 March). The aircraft landed just before 6 p.m and engineers began inspecting the plan to decide whether it was able to continue to its final destination. 

The A330 plane’s approach sounded the alarm to the local Fire Service as there was information of smoke inside the plane toward the back. The flight had raised the squawk 7700 emergency code at around 3pm. 

Flight Emergency posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Lufthansa flight LH630. FRA - DXB Squawking 7700 (emergency.).” The post gained a lot of attention with users questioning what happened to the flight. One user said: “Anyone know what is going on???”. Another user posted: “What happened?”.

A Lufthansa spokesperson told NationalWorld that “there was no smoke” but the crew “observed a clearly definable electrical smell”. The spokesperson added: “Thus the cockpit crew decided to divert to Rhodes. Touch down and disembarking went normally. Guests and crew were accommodated at hotels. The source of the smell is still unclear.” The airline says that it will be sending another aircraft today (Tuesday 19 March) to “take guests to the initial destination Dubai”.

It comes after a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Gothenburg was forced to divert and make an emergency landing in Hamburg on Saturday 9 March due to a “defective coffee maker”. The incident occurred on flight LH818 with the cockpit crew declaring an “air emergency”. The airline said that the “aircraft landed normally” and the “passengers left the aircraft normally” with the “cause of the smoke now being thoroughly investigated by technicians.”