Passengers on a Laudamotion flight to Vienna at London Stansted Airport were in a panic on Friday evening when their plane aborted take-off after travelers heard a loud bang.
The plane quickly deaccelerated on the runway and 169 passengers on board were told to evacuate airlines/watch-how-do-an-airplanes-emergency-slides-deploy.html” target=”_self” rel=”nofollow”>via an emergency slide. Fire trucks appeared on the scene and travelers were taken to safety. It’s suspected that the plane suffered engine failure.
In the chaos, eight people sustained minor injuries.
Evacuated form Laudamotion flight that was heading to Vienna. Big bang and flames on engine. Everyone is ok! #laudamotion #StanstedAirport pic.twitter.com/c1vNfiPMdg
— Toni Barta (@bartatoni) March 1, 2019
Stansted Airport tweeted: “Emergency service attended and all passengers were evacuated from the aircraft as a precaution.”
The airport was shut down for some time, causing flight delays and cancellations.
Laudamotion later tweeted: “The crew of OE flight from Stansted to Vienna decided to abort the take off due to engine issues and to disembark the passengers on the runway as a precautionary measure.”
“Passengers were transferred to the terminal by bus and will be re-accommodated onto a replacement flight.”
#UPDATE pic.twitter.com/oShSo6S6Cv
— London Stansted Airport (@STN_Airport) March 1, 2019
Some travelers took to social media to share their travel emergency nightmare.
The BBC reported that a traveler named Jana said the flight attendants were panicked and “pretty much caused chaos themselves.” She also noted that the emergency slide was “scary” because “we had to basically jump from the plane onto the slide down this 10m drop.”
Estate agent Thomas Steer, 24, from Essex, said he heard a “big bang on the side of the aircraft which skidded to a stop”.
He added: “It was scary. And then staff shouting ‘evacuate evacuate’.”
