Pilot aborted takeoff

Smoke billowing from under plane in Australia

An Etihad Airways plane

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/Thiago Trevisan)

In Australia, an incident involving an Etihad Airways aircraft has ended just about without any serious consequences. The pilot aborted the take-off at Melbourne Airport on Sunday evening (local time) due to technical problems at the last minute. Smoke then rose.

According to reports, the plane was traveling at a speed of at least 200 kilometers per hour when the pilot applied the emergency brake. Two tires were severely damaged during the maneuver. Smoke then rose from underneath the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. "It was the scariest moment of my life," said one passenger. "We were sure we were going to die."

All passengers unharmed
In fact, all 289 passengers were unharmed. Photos and videos show how fire engines rushed to the plane. It was difficult to remove the plane. Melbourne Airport had to make do with just one runway until Monday morning. Delays were the result.

Here you can see pictures of the plane.

Passengers later praised the calm and level-headed behavior of the crew. The plane was due to fly from Melbourne to Abu Dhabi. Etihad apologized for the inconvenience, but emphasized that the safety of the passengers and crew had priority.

It was only at the end of December that an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. Just a few days later, a plane operated by the low-cost airline Jeju Air made a fatal crash landing in South Korea. This killed 179 people.