A Ryanair plane blocks Tenerife South runway for four hours

The passengers spent an hour inside the plane before returning to the ground

The incident of a plane in Tenerife Sur set off the alarms. Ryanair flight FR6763 connecting the Island with the British city of Bournemouth on Saturday, 27 August, had to make an abrupt stop after “turning” when it was about to take off. As a consequence, it blocked runway 07 at Tenerife South airport for four hours.

The plane that caused the incident was a Boeing 737-800 registered EI-EFC, which had to abort the takeoff manoeuvre just a few seconds before leaving the airport. As reported by air traffic controllers through their official Twitter profile, the takeoff was unsuccessful because the brakes heated up very quickly and at a very high temperature causing them to lock, leaving the plane immobilised. This manoeuvre occurred around 12:45, and the crew aborted the takeoff manoeuvre.

The passengers had to wait around an hour inside the aircraft before returning to the airport terminal.

“We were about to take off, we went full throttle and then the plane veered to the right and then to the left considerably. Then they put the brakes on very hard,” a passenger said. “We didn’t know what was going on. We thought we weren’t going to stop. It was really scary as it was all happening so fast.”

Many aircraft had to divert to surrounding airports (Tenerife North, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, …) during the four hours the runway was blocked, creating long queues of grounded passengers at Tenerife South.

The flight was due to land at Bournemouth airport at around 16:00, but passengers faced a long delay in Tenerife. It was only one day later (Sunday 28 August) that the aircraft was repaired and could bring the travellers to their final destination, albeit with a 24 hours delay.

Source: El Dia, Flightradar24, Twitter