Moments of panic have been spent by the 10 passengers of a plane that took off from Athens airport.
The disruption happened shortly before 11:00 noon on Thursday, June 19, at Athens International Airport, when the pilot of an Airbus flight that had taken off from "Eleftherios Venizelos" contacted the airport's control tower and asked for a runway to make an emergency landing.
A few minutes later, the alarm went off when the plane landed safely. Firefighters were deployed to the airport runway as a precaution, but fortunately they did not need to intervene.
According to the information, on an Airbus 319 plane, with 150 passengers, a "Full Emergency" indicator appeared, as there were smoke marks in the cockpit immediately after takeoff.
The plane was flying from Athens to Riga, Latvia. As Flightradar24 reports in its post, it is an Airbus A319-112 of the charter company Carpatair, which was operating an airBaltic flight (BT6162). All passengers are in good health and are being evacuated. The aircraft is expected to be checked by the company's technicians.
The aircraft deviated from its course over the Aegean Sea and returned to Spata, indicating a possible mechanical or safety problem during flight. The operation of Eleftherios Venizelos Airport, in Spata, has returned to normal, after the plane landed on an auxiliary runway.