Forced landing for Budapest-Bucharest Tarom flight, engine on fire

An engine of a Tarom flight Budapest-Bucharest caught fire on Wednesday during takeoff.

The aircraft took off at around 2:15 p.m. from the airport in Budapest and, after a few minutes, an engine caught fire and the passengers started to feel smell of smoke, said the President of the Harghita County Council, Csaba Borbely, who was on board the aircraft, in a telephone intervention with Digi 24.

The plane has returned to Budapest airport and the pilot managed to land without problems, so that no person was injured.

Csaba Borboly later said that, five minutes after takeoff, the airplane was above the clouds and had been already filled with smoke and then he noticed that one of the propellers stopped.

The flight attendants told the passengers not to panic and to sit with head down and shortly afterwards the pilots managed to land the plane at the Budapest airport.

According to Borboly, all passengers were evacuated; intervention teams were at the site.

“The Tarom crew was professional and did its job very well. At the site arrived intervention teams. A gentleman next to me just said: ‘I am reborn’. We have been notified that we return home with another Tarom flight that will take off from Budapest at 19.55h and will arrive in Bucharest at 22.30,” said Csaba Borboly.

Tarom has handed the passengers tickets for another flight that was to take off from Budapest airport and to land in Bucharest at 22:30h local time.

According to a Tarom release, “the flight RO 236 took off from Budapest at 13.12h UTC for Bucharest and returned to the Budapest Airport after 5 minutes of flying due to inadequate signal from engine number 2. The crew has proceeded according to standard procedures for such situations and has landed in full safety on the Budapest airport,” the release reads.

According to Tarom, the passengers were evaluated from the aircraft safely and are being assisted by Tarom representatives.