Living in Asia, we fully understand the pungent power of aroma. You name it, there’s a veritable smorgasbord of aromatic items in Asia like, shrimp paste, dried fish, smelly sewer systems and toilets, drainage canals, and the king of them all, durians. But for an Air India flight from Mumbai to Frankfurt it was a bag of spice powder that sparked an emergency onboard the B747. Believe it or not, the pungent smell from a bag of curry powder in a passenger’s luggage set off the smoke alarm, causing the pilots to activate the fire-suppression system in the cargo hold and ultimately turn the plane back to Mumbai. We’re guessing it would have made one HOT curry! Apparently, unlike B777s, false fire alarms are uncommon on B747s. The more sensitive alarms on B777s have in the past been set off by consignments of mangoes and durians, which cause unusual humidity and temperature conditions in cargo holds and hence irritate those peskysmoke detectors.