Government plane suffers technical problem
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
03.06.2015 11:46
No one was hurt when an Embraer plane with several government dignitaries on board was forced to cancel take off on Wednesday.
The Embraer 175 was forces to retirn to its hangar on Wednesday. Photo: PAP/Jacek Turczyk
The plane carrying Sejm speaker Radosław Sikorski, his deputy, SLD MP Jerzy Wenderlich, as well as other politicians was meant to fly to Prague.
The Embraer EMB-175LR had already started accelerating down the runway for takeoff, but at the last minute the captain slowed the plane, and returned to the hangar at the military airport in Warsaw.
“[You could sense] fear in people’s eyes, but everything was OK,” Jerzy Wenderlich told the TVN broadcaster.
“It was quite unnerving. I have experienced many dangerous situations while travelling throughout my career, but this looked pretty serious. It seemed to us that the plane propelled itself to very high speeds, and even took to the air a little bit. Suddenly the pilot decided to stop the plane, and we immediately touched the ground and [experienced] frighteningly violent braking,” Wenderlich said.
Sejm speaker and former Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski tweeted: “I thank the captain and crew of the government plane for their professionalism, and also the deputy speaker and other members of the delegation for their bravery.”
The plane most probably suffered a navigation malfunction. (rg)
Source: TVN24