Exploding curry menaces 747

£20k of damage in microwave mishap

By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 21st May 2007 10:43 GMT

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Forget binary liquid explosives, a British Airways stewardess has shown how it's really done by popping her curry ready meal into a 747's club class microwave, with explosive results.

The spicy blast - caused by the supermarket-bought nosh's inability to withstand the might of the double-strength airborne microwave - provoked crew on the Heathrow to Miami jaunt to deploy a fire extinguisher "to douse the blazing oven".

The jumbo subsequently needed days of repairs totalling £20,000, The Sun notes. This prompted BA to circulate details of the incident in a secret email memo to long haul crews, chillingly entitled "Microwave incident". The missive notes that food intended for high-altitude reheating needs "special packaging" since the aircraft's ovens have twice the power output of your ground-based domestic model.

Accordingly, staff are now banned from preparing their own tucker in 747s' club class microwaves. One BA employee lamented: "Many cabin crew like to bring their own meals to eat. At first we thought the microwaves were a godsend. But this unfortunate incident has left us with egg on our faces."

BA stressed that at no time during the curry-based emergency were passengers or the aircraft at risk. ®

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