El Al plane turns back due to malfunction
Aircraft headed to Cairo returns to Tel Aviv after wings fail to fold back. In separate incident, pilot on plane taking off from Mumbai returns to airport after bird hits one of aircraft's engines
An El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Cairo turned back after 20 minutes Thursday due to a malfunction in the aircraft's wings, Ynet has learned. In a separate incident, a bird hit the engine of an El Al plane taking off from Mumbai, India towards Tel Aviv on Thursday night.
The pilot on flight LY072 decided not to take any chances and turned back towards the Mumbai airport. The company stresses that the passengers or plane were not in danger during the incident.
An El Al official clarified that "the safety issue is a superior value in the company's activity and it does not compromise on it at any stage or in any way."
In the Cairo incident, the plane was forced to turn back after its wings failed to fold back. One of the passengers said, "We were five people, me and my family. We were up in the sky, and 15 minutes later they announced that we were heading back. There was a lot of confusion and no answers. We began praying; we were scared. I have never seen such thing. The plane was trembling."
The man said that the incident caused his to miss a wedding in Egypt.
An El Al spokeswoman said in response, "Due to a malfunction in the wings it was decided that the plane would return to Ben-Gurion Airport. The passengers were transferred to an alternative plane and the flight was resumed. The company preferred to deal with the malfunction in Israel rather than in Egypt because of the short distance the plane had gone."
Neri Yarkoni, former head of Israeli Civil Aviation Administration, explained that about the malfunction. "It can happen and it happens. There are all kinds of problems with this matter. It's not terrible and not serious… This is not a rare malfunction and it's definitely not dangerous."
Last week, an El Al plane was involved in a serious safety incident at Ben-Gurion Airport, as it was taking off from the same runway a Lufthansa plane was about to land on. The incident is believed to have been caused by the control tower. Two controllers who were on duty at the time have been suspended until the completion of the investigation.
Initial information received via Red Email
