The era when the initials TAP were jokingly referred to as Take Another Plane may well have been on the minds of 274 passengers yesterday when smoke started emerging from the baggage hold, 45 minutes into a flight to Brazil.
The crew decided to turn round and flew, without incident or any reported reactions of panic, back to Lisbon, where “works of inspection” then took place.
A source from the trouble-torn state airline awaiting privatisation has told journalists that all passengers were “transferred to another plane” which set off, once again bound for Recife, three hours later.
