Luton Airport flight aborted ‘at high speed’ during take-off

A passenger has described how “the brakes slammed on” when a flight was aborted during take-off.

Paul Bartlett, 64, was on the 15:10 Wizz Air flight to Tirana, Albania on Monday when the incident happened at London Luton Airport.

The airport said “all passengers disembarked safely” and that the fire service had attended “as a precautionary measure”.

Wizz Air has been contacted for comment.

Mr Bartlett, who lives in Milton Keynes, said the plane was on the runway and “we were literally one or two seconds from take off when there was heavy braking”.

“There was no panic, it was a superb stop by the pilots. The cabin crew were good,” he told the BBC.

He said passengers were told in an onboard announcement that the reason was believed to be “an instrument fault”.

“Everyone is perfectly fine – they’re just checking the aircraft now,” he said, speaking from inside the terminal where passengers were waiting.

A spokesperson for London Luton Airport said: “The aircraft returned to stand in line with the industry’s safety-first approach. There was no disruption to airport operations.”

The airport said the incident was not something that would be reportable to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.