A plane was forced to make an emergency landing due to a “technical issue” with an engine, leaving passengers “quite upset.” The Blue Islands flight from Birmingham to Jersey had to return to the airport shortly after takeoff due to a fault with one of its two engines. After taking off at 3 pm on Sunday, the plane, which typically has room for 70 passengers, landed again in strong winds.
Leanne Rowe was travelling to Jersey for a family holiday when the incident occurred, leaving her “feeling unsure” of what to do while trying to reassure her children. She added that the captain issued a four-word announcement to the passengers before the emergency landing, confirming a “problem with the engine”.
Leanne said: “It was pretty scary – straight from the start it was quite rocky… My daughter was quite upset about it.
“At some point in the air the captain said to us that we were going to turn around because there was a problem with the engine. You don’t really know how serious that is.”
Fellow passenger Lauren York said her 20-month-old son “slept through” the whole ordeal.
She said: “When we touched ground and we were swerving all over the place, that was really frightening. We were just holding on to him thinking are we going to make it? It was very worrying.”
Sarah Brown praised the pilot for doing “a great job” to carry out a safe landing, but said it was “still quite scary”.
She said: “We knew we’d get here safely in the end. [My children] got to go in the cockpit, meet both the pilots, so they had an experience”.
A Blue Islands spokesperson said the crew followed procedure after they receieved a cockpit indication of a “technical issue”.
They were able to shut down the engine as a precaution and the passengers disembarked normally before being provided with a hotel and hot meal.
The airline’s statement added that the engine “at no time stopped working in any uncontrolled way”. The plane is now being looked at by engineers.
It read: “These procedures have an abundance of caution built into them to ensure passenger safety.”
A Birmingham Airport spokesperson added that one flight was diverted but there were no other restrictions on the runway after the plane landed.