‘Spluttering’ plane engine sparks emergency

A PASSENGER on a Loganair flight to Shetland spoke about her fear when the Saab aircraft had to return to Aberdeen after one of its two engines had to be shut down.

A full emergency was called at Aberdeen airport on Thursday evening. The plane, with 33 people on board, landed safely at 7.40pm and no one was hurt.

Shetland resident Kaila Tarrant was one of the passengers on flight BE6780 to Sumburgh airport.

She said it was evident within minutes of taking off that not everything was right as one of the engines was spluttering like “a car with a fuel problem”.

Fifty minutes into the flight passengers were alerted via the tannoy that the plane would be landing in Aberdeen within the next 10 minutes.

“I didn’t realise we had turned,” she said. “I think they didn’t want to alarm anybody, but at that stage everybody knew there was definitely a problem on the plane.

“It was really scary. I knew there was something wrong with the plane and I felt panic. One of the other passengers could see that one of the engines had actually stopped working.

“There was a woman sitting in front of me reading the newspaper really calmly, and that had a good effect on me.

“The plane juddered a few times. Then the pilot told us that there was a problem and that the left engine was not working.”

After arriving back in Aberdeen passengers were offered overnight accommodation in the city. They continued their journey to Shetland on various flights during Friday.

In a statement a Loganair spokesman said: “Flight BE6780 took off from Aberdeen last night for Sumburgh carrying three crew and 30 passengers.

“During the flight the crew responded to a warning indication, shut one of the engines down as a precautionary measure and returned to Aberdeen airport.”

He added that a “full and thorough” inspection of the aircraft was under way.