The Mysterious Smoke Alarm That Brought Down a 747 Plane

Aircraft emergencies can be particularly terrifying. When something goes wrong and endangers people's safety, you never want to be on a plane. Therefore, it stands to reason that when a Boeing 747 was traveling from Sydney, Australia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2015, unexplained smoke began to accumulate in the cargo hold, forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing.

Smoke detectors sounded, and the jet landed in Bali. The plane was carrying a staggering 2,186 sheep when the alarm went off in the cargo compartment. The fire was not there when the authorities arrived to do their investigation, and it turned out that smoke had not set off the alarm after all. Instead, the airline learned that, when over 2,000 sheep are enclosed in a metal tube with minimal ventilation, the volatile methane from their farts can cause a smoke alarm to go off, which is exactly what happened. Effective air clearing and getting the jet ready to take off again took a few hours.