A budget airliner hurtled towards the sea at 300mph just seconds after take off[1].
The Airbus A320 aircraft in Italy suffered a “serious incident”[2] shortly after the plane took off from Sicily’s Catania Airport. the Air Arabia aircraft had taken off from the island’s airport at 9:57pm on September 20, before a “Ground Proximity Warning System pull-up message” was received.
The plane had been bound for Queen Alia International Airport in Jordan at the time of the incident, a statement shared by Italian aviation accident investigation agency said. The agency said the pull-up message happened “occurred as the aircraft approached the sea surface, reaching a short distance from it.”
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Flight tracking website Flightradar24, the messages “are vital safety systems in modern aircraft that are designed to prevent collisions with terrain or obstacles, and were designed to prevent Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) accidents.”
The aviation accident agency said in a statement: “The flight continued without further incident. There were no passengers on board, and two pilots and four cabin crew members were present.
“After a preliminary review of the information received from the operator, ANSV opened a safety investigation, classifying the event as a serious incident.” The plane reached about 200 feet from the sea at a speed of just under 300mph, Italian outlet la Repubblica Palermo reported.
Getty Images/iStockphoto)
It is not clear whether weather[5] conditions were good at the time of the incident, the outlet reported. The flight did land at about 2:52am local time on September 21.
It comes after horror incidents involving other planes. An easyJet plane came “within 10ft” of crashing into another airliner as it prepared to jet off with an urgent investigation having been launched.
The incident happened at 11:30pm on Sunday, September 21, during heavy rain at France’s third busiest airport. Philippe Tabarot, the French transport minister, said “a collision involving two aircraft of the Nouvelair and easyJet airlines was narrowly avoided” and that he had “immediately ordered” an investigation by the air accident investigation branch (BEA).
References
- ^ seconds after take off (www.mirror.co.uk)
- ^ suffered a “serious incident” (www.mirror.co.uk)
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- ^ weather (www.mirror.co.uk)