Luton flight forced to do high speed ‘emergency stop’ during take-off

Paul Bartlett, 64, had been on the 15.10 Wizz Air flight to Tirana in Albania on Monday (May 11) when the flight was forced to stop.

He explained: “I was just getting ready for us to take off, the front of the nose and leave the tarmac. And we didn't do that. Instead, we did an emergency stop. It's like when you're doing an emergency stop in your car. But this time we're going over 100 miles an hour in an airplane.”

The airline confirmed that the plane was forced to abandon its take-off.

A Wizz Air spokesperson said: “We can confirm that on Monday 12 May we aborted the takeoff on a flight from London Luton Airport to Tirana due to a technical reason. The health and safety of our passengers is our top priority. The crew followed standard procedures, ensuring all passengers and crew disembarked the aircraft safely whilst necessary checks were taken. Crew and passengers were safely placed on another aircraft to Tirana on Monday evening.”

Paul, who lives in Milton Keynes, said that fire crews were by the plane after it returned to the terminal.

He said: “When the plane landed, it was going at such a speed, the brakes overheated. So they had the fire engines there, just obviously as a precaution. Everyone was just great.”

The flight eventually left the terminal and arrived in Albania just before 10pm.