Canadian budget airline Swoop says one of its jets was forced to make an emergency landing Tuesday after a bird strike caused an engine fire.
According to tracking website FlightAware, Swoop Flight 312 had just departed Abbotsford International Airport in British Columbia at 8:16 a.m. PDT bound for Edmonton when geese flew into one of the Boeing 737’s engines minutes after takeoff. The pilots were able to safely land back at Abbotsford about 10 minutes later and none of the crew or 176 passengers were injured, representatives for the airline and airport told The Canadian Broadcast Corporation and CTV.
Swoop acknowledged the incident via tweet a couple of hours later”We can confirm Flight 312 landed safely in Abbotsford due to a bird strike shortly after departure,” it read. All travelers were offloaded safely and without incident. Thank you to our captain and crew for ensuring the safety of our travelers.”
USA TODAY has reached out to Swoop, a subsidiary of WestJet, for comment.Things may have seemed calm from the outside but passengers briefly panicked after seeing flames jetting from the right engine.
“As the aircraft was rolling down the runway, it felt like we hit a bump,” Fadhl Abu-Ghanem told Canadian TV network CTV after the plane was safely offloaded. “Next thing I know I start seeing flames coming out of the right engine…I also felt very strong heat… I looked around for a flight attendant and couldn’t find one so I just started yelling ‘There’s fire, fire, fire right engine, fire right engine!’ “