easyJet Flight with 167 Passengers Aboard Seconds Away from Disaster

An easyJet flight taking off from Lisbon in Portugal carrying 167 passengers was one seconds from crashing after crew miscalculated the length of the runway by over one and a half kilometres!

AN easyJet flight from Lisbon in Portugal to Manchester took off leaving just 110m of runway left, the plane, an Airbus A320, would have covered the distance in a mere 1.3 seconds at full take-off speed.

It is understood that the error occurred when the crew programmed the plane to take off from the wrong point on the runway during their pre-flight safety calculations. Investigators from the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) said the ‘magnitude of the error’ meant there was a risk of ‘serious damage to the aircraft and its occupants.’

All modern aircraft have an on-board computer system which handles flight systems management, autopilot and take-off and landing procedures. This system was given the wrong information and so believed the plane had 4km (2.5 miles) of runway to use.

Because of the error, the jet started its take-off speed down the tarmac too slow and only managed to become airborne at the last moment, clearing a fence and a road at a height of just 10 metres (35ft). Disaster would have struck had the plane not managed to clear the runway – at 297 kmh (185 mph) it would have taken half-a-mile at least to stop.

Investigators looking into the incident reported that the crew were ‘subjected to numerous interruptions’ during their pre-flight checks, including a sick passenger and late changes to fuel and loading requirements. The report also highlighted the fact that the crew did engage full thrust even though they knew the plane could have not cleared the runway.