Jet2 plane passengers in emergency chute evacuation at Blackpool Airport

Updated
Jet2 plane passengers in emergency chute evacuation at Blackpool Airport
Jet2 plane passengers in emergency chute evacuation at Blackpool Airport

There was panic at Blackpool Airport on Friday after passengers were evacuated via emergency chutes from a Jet2 plane.

Flight LS740 from Alicante was met by three fire crews from the Lancashire Fire and Rescue service after traffic control spotted smoke coming from the brakes upon landing.

Some of the 139 passengers described a "bumpy" landing. They were kept on board for several minutes before being evacuated down the emergency chutes.

Speaking to the Blackpool Gazette, holidaymaker Andrew Dance, 52, said: "It was a bit of a bumpy landing. And then we saw smoke coming off the tyre.

"When they said they were evacuating the plane, that's when the panic started. It was quite scary – the chutes came down but one of them wouldn't open.

"Where I was there was nobody catching people at the bottom so people were just pouring off.

"Quite a few had scratches on their arms and legs. There were a couple of banged heads but we were lucky – it could have been a lot worse."

Cleveleys News managed to capture the emergency evacuation on camera, and tweeted an image of the scene, writing on Friday: "Jet2 passengers at Blackpool airport were treated to complimentary bouncy castle and slide earlier today.


Sue Kendrick, corporate affairs manager at Blackpool Airport, told The Leader: "It was a hydraulic fluid leak in the under carriage - when the aircraft landed it smoked.

It carried on smoking - to be on the safe side we evacuated.

"Emergency orders worked absolutely perfectly. It's good to see in an emergency situation they all worked well."

A Jet2 spokesman told the Daily Mail: "The captain was advised to evacuate flight LS740 from Alicante as a precautionary measure after Blackpool Airport air traffic control spotted smoke coming from the brakes on landing."

He added that a full investigation is under way.

The news comes just days after a Jet2 flight from Cyprus to Newcastle was forced to make an emergency landing in Bulgaria after losing cabin pressure.

Flight LS516 made a rapid descent dropping thousands of feet in minutes, before landing at Sofia airport where it was met by local emergency services.

British holidaymakers reportedly thought the plane was crash-landing as oxygen masks were deployed an hour after take-off.

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