A sudden lurch and screeching of brakes plunged 156 passengers into moments of panic on the early morning easyJet flight out of Lisbon to London on Monday.
The technical fault forced the pilot to abort take-off at almost the last minute, reports Correio da Manhã newspaper. Indeed one passenger said: “The plane started to take off normally but just as it started to go up, it came straight down, which caused panic.”
ANA, the national airports authority, simply said “the plane aborted take-off”, adding that at no time did its wheels leave the runway.
The problem stemmed from a fault in the front wheel and rudder, but it meant that shaken passengers were in for another unpleasant surprise: a three-hour wait onboard and stuck on the tarmac.
“None of us could understand it,” another passenger said. “Nobody told us anything more about what had happened. They just said that there was a problem with the rudder and front wheel and we were left with that. No further explanation was given.”
Indeed, easyJet was reported not to have given any further information to CM either.
But once the fault was repaired and the plane given the ‘all-clear’, the low-cost 9.45am flight out of Portela airport continued on its way to London without further incident.
