The left engine of a TAP A320-214 airbus exploded yesterday afternoon, just as the ‘almost full’ plane was preparing for take off.
No one was hurt and there was no panic on board “because it all happened so quickly”.
But photos and a video clip uploaded online caught the incident, which saw the airport shut down for 35 minutes and “various flights diverted to Faro”.
Flight TP 862 was headed for Venice and had among the 170 passengers on board the film crew of a Portuguese movie showing at the Venice Film Festival today (Thursday).
Director Tiago Guedes was with the contingent of “A Herdade” and told reporters: “The noise was very loud.
“We didn’t feel much inside, but we were well aware it wasn’t a small incident. Even the crew didn’t appear to know what had happened”.
Emergency vehicles raced to the scene as the plane turned slowly round and exited the runway.
As for the passengers, they were informed there was a ‘technical delay’ and were flown to Venice, on another plane, a few hours later.
Photo: Aviação TV on Facebook
