Terrifying footage has emerged of the moment a passenger jet carrying 90 people slammed into a runway in Portugal after heavy winds caused a momentary engine failure.
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) flight SK2901 departed from Stockholm on January 6 for Funchal in Madeira and was coming in to land when a strong downdraft forced the plane down into the tarmac.
The Airbus A320 bounced off the runway, sparks flying as its landing gear absorbed incredible forces as flames momentarily erupted from the left engine.
The aircraft then jerked back up into the air, with the pilot unable to bleed enough speed to land safely.
Bringing the aircraft back under control, the pilot was instructed to hold for 20 minutes before attempting another landing, but noticed that the left-hand engine was emitting fumes, the Aviation Herald reported.
Concerned about the safety of the engine, the SAS pilot instead opted to head for Las Palmas airport on the Canary Islands – a facility better equipped to perform engine maintenance and safety checks.
Despite the harrowing incident, the SAS flight ultimately landed safely at Las Palmas airport and all 90 passengers disembarked without injury.
High winds caused the plane to pitch and yaw as it came in to land before a sharp down draft forced it into the tarmac
The Airbus A320 bounced off the runway, sparks flying as its landing gear absorbed incredible forces as flames momentarily erupted from the left engine.
The plane bounced back up into the air and the pilot noticed the left engine began emitting fumes, opting to land at Las Palmas airport in Gran Canaria for maintenance
The scary incident unfolded just one day after an Alaska Airlines flight suffered an inflight blowout at 16,000ft which tore open the cabin door.
The Boeing jetliner suffered the sudden loss of pressure over Oregon on Friday and the resulting rush of air sucked open the cockpit door and ripped off the captain’s headset.
One of the passengers, Emma Vu, was asleep when the Boeing 737 Max 9 suddenly dropped after a plug covering an unused exit door blew off.
She wrote several panicked messages to her parents, in which she said: ‘The masks are down. I am so scared right now. Please pray for me. I don’t want to die.’
Ms Vu later shared footage of the ordeal on TikTok, which showed her wearing an oxygen mask while panic is taking hold of her and other passengers nearby.
‘You just think it’s never going to happen to you – and then it literally did happen to me,’ she told CNN, adding that it was ‘very scary’ and ‘very surreal’.
Another passenger, Sreysoar Un, who travelled with her 12-year-old son, said she was afraid the plane was going to crash.
‘We literally thought we were going to die,’ she told the Wall Street Journal as the hole in the aircraft was just one row ahead of theirs. Her son Josiah saw his phone and a teddy bear fly out of the hole.
Alaska flight 1282 left Portland just after 5pm local time on Friday when a window blew out at 16,000 feet
A photo shows the blown out window. It is offered as a door on the aircraft. Alaska chose not to take this option – although the frame of the prospective door was entirely ripped out by the fuselage failure
Several passengers described a loud noise before freezing wind swept through the cabin and oxygen masks dropped down.
Alaska Airlines decided to restrict the aircraft from long flights over water so the plane ‘could return very quickly to an airport’ if the warning light that could have indicated a pressurization problem lit up on three different flights reappeared, said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Homendy cautioned that the pressurization light might be unrelated to Friday’s incident. It came came on during three previous flights: on December 7, January 3 and January 4 – the day before the door plug broke off.
Homendy said she didn’t have all the details regarding the December 7 incident but specified the light came on during a flight on January 3 and on January 4 after the plane had landed.
One of the passengers, Emma Vu, was asleep when the Boeing 737 Max 9 suddenly dropped after a plug covering an unused exit door blew off. She wrote several panicked messages to her parents, in which she said: ‘The masks are down. I am so scared right now. Please pray for me. I don’t want to die’
One passenger who filmed the drama said she woke up from a nap believing the plane had hit turbulence – only to discover a large hole in its fuselage
One passenger, Emma Vu took to TikTok after she made it out alive through the horror flight that was only in the air for 20 minutes
The NTSB said the lost door plug was found Sunday near Portland, Oregon, by a school teacher – for now, known only as Bob – who discovered it in his backyard and sent two photos to the safety board. Investigators will examine the plug, which is 26 by 48 inches and weighs 63 pounds, for signs of how it broke free.
Investigators will not have the benefit of hearing what was going on in the cockpit during the flight. The cockpit voice recorder – one of two so-called black boxes – recorded over the flight’s sounds after two hours, Homendy said.
At a news conference Sunday night, Homendy provided new details about the chaotic scene that unfolded on the plane.
The explosive rush of air damaged several rows of seats and pulled insulation from the walls. The cockpit door flew open and banged into a lavatory door.
The force ripped the headset off the co-pilot and the captain lost part of her headset. A quick reference checklist kept within easy reach of the pilots flew out of the open cockpit, Homendy said.
The plane made it back to Portland, however, and none of the 171 passengers and six crew members was seriously injured.
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