'Normal Working' Despite Shorts Fire

Staff are beginning work as normal at the Bombardier 'Shorts' aerospace factory this morning following a weekend fire.

The fire began in an area where metal components are cleaned before going to assembly lines and was discovered by maintenance staff.

The company said there will an investigation into the Sunday blaze, but that they did not expect production at the site to be affected.

The Airport Road factory suffered damage caused, but it was not substantial, having been confined to a small area, and would not affect production activities, a spokesperson said.

"We have completed a preliminary inspection which has shown that the fire was confined to within our metal components treatments section which is partitioned from the rest of the factory.

"The area concerned was not operational as it is undergoing re-equipping, and no employees were working in the area at the time.

"There will be a full investigation of the cause of the incident but initial inspections have shown that damage was confined to this relatively small area.

"There appears to be no structural damage to the facility and we do not expect there to be any impact on our production process. Employees should report as normal for night and day shifts," he said, last night.

"We are very grateful that no one was hurt in the incident," he continued.

"We would like to thank the Emergency Services and particularly the Fire Service for their excellent and prompt response, as well as our employees involved who responded so well in the circumstances."

The Belfast facility is a centre of excellence for composite manufacturing and is the home of the design and manufacture of the firm's C-series aircraft wings.

At the moment testing of the C-series demonstrator wing is being carried out at the site.

(BMcC/GK)