A Boeing 757 plane’s engine burst into flames shortly after takeoff, leading to passengers sending out “goodbye texts” to loved ones before making an emergency landing.
Concord Airlines Flight DE 3665 from Corfu, Greece, to Düsseldoft, Germany, was carrying 273 passengers when a turbine airflow disruption led to its engine catching fire at an altitude of approximately 36,000 feet on Saturday (August 16), WDR reports. Passengers noticed flames coming from the right wing at around 8:00 p.m. local time, according to Bild.
The plane was rerouted to make an emergency landing at Brindisi Airport in southern Italy at around 8:15 p.m. local time, about 40 minutes after takeoff, according to flight tracking data shared by FlightRadar24.
“Suddenly, the power went out for a few seconds, and we realized we were no longer climbing,” a passenger onboard the flight told Bild.
“It was an incredibly horrible experience. I already sent goodbye texts because I thought, ‘It’s over now,’” another passenger said.
Unverified videos shared online show the plane’s right engine flash flames at various times. One video shared on TikTok shows the plane’s jet making loud booms while malfunctioning.
“I was just chilling … then realized a plane was literally fighting fire in front of me,” the caption of the TikTok video states.
Passengers and crew members were placed in a hotel or stayed at the airport before taking another aircraft to Germany the following morning.
“Unfortunately, there was insufficient hotel capacity in Brindisi, meaning that not all guests could be accommodated in hotels,” Concord Airlines said in a statement.
The plane is reported undergoing a technical inspection following the incident. A similar incident involving a Delta Air Lines Boeing 767 took place last month.
The aircraft was carrying 226 passengers and nine crew members on a flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta when the mid-air malfunction occurred, KABC reports. Flames began to shoot from the engine of the Delta Flight 446 plane as it continued ascending in a video shared by the plane spotter L.A. FLIGHTS.
The airplane turned around and made an emergency landing back at Los Angeles International Airport shortly after the flames were present. The two incidents are the latest involving Boeing aircrafts, which experienced several manufacturing issues in 2024, beginning with an Alaska Airlines plane’s door plug blowing off the aircraft, causing an uncontrolled decompression.
The Alaska Airlines incident reopened Boeing to new prosecution in a 2021 case in which it agreed to plead guilty to charges that it had deceived the FAA during the initial certification process of its 737 Max aircrafts. Boeing paid fines of up to $487 million, double what it was ordered to pay in 2021 as part of its settlement and had agreed to operate under the oversight of a new government-appointed monitor, however, a federal judge rejected the plea in October due to questions about how the government-appointed monitor would be selected, which resulted in the punishment being uncertain.
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