LAHORE: An aircraft of a private Pakistani airlines carrying around 300 passengers escaped an accident after one of its engines caught fire soon after take-off from the Lahore airport on Sunday.

A Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) official told Dawn Shaheen Air International’s flight NL-766 had taken off at 12pm on Sunday from Allama Iqbal International Airport for Dubai.

“Soon after take-off, the pilot found that one of the two engines has caught fire. He switched it off and informed the control tower about it,” he said.

The CAA alerted all departments for any emergency during the landing. “Thank God, the pilot managed to land the aircraft safely at 12:35pm,” the official added.

Passengers were told the plane had developed a technical fault, which was why it landed back in Lahore. However, their patience ran out when the airlines staff continued delaying the flight.

“We were told that some technical fault had developed in the plane and it will be fixed shortly. Around 10 hours passed and we were told the aircraft will leave in an hour or so,” an elderly passenger said while regretting his decision to choose the airlines for travelling.

Some of the passengers lodged a protest with the airlines staff with whom they also exchanged some harsh words.

An official at the airport told Dawn the flight was scheduled to leave at 11:30pm as the “fault had been removed”, but it had not taken off until the filing of this report.

CAA spokesman Pervaiz George told Dawn the authority had constituted a team to investigate the matter.

“We are also checking airworthiness of the Boeing,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2015

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