While taking off, a LATAM Airlines’ Boeing 777 was caught on camera dragging its tail along the runway in Italy, generating smoke as well as sparks. According to Corriere della Serra local reports, this occurred on Tuesday at Milan Malpensa Airport where the plane filled with hundreds of passengers was preparing for departure to Sao Paulo in Brazil.
The video showed that during the takeoff roll of the jet its back end suddenly dropped which could have been due to a mechanical fault. The airplane’s rear scrapes behind it over some hundreds of feet before taking off thus leaving behind gray smoke. According to Corriere, there were also flames coming out from the tail section of the Boeing.
Nonetheless, despite all these incidents, calm pilots managed to fly away safely. Upon reaching a safe altitude they radioed back to control requesting permission for inspection after landing.
An aviation expert gave his opinion about this event saying that according to him ‘from what we can see,’ the pilots did not panic and still controlled the plane until it took off since if they had abandoned takeoff they would have killed everyone on board according to an Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera (Corriere della Serra).
Moreover he emphasized: “It would have been a massacre if they had stopped that maneuver.”
Presently authorities from Brazil and US governments as well as Italy are collaborating with each other so as to figure out why such an enigmatic accident took place here. The passenger capacity of this particular Boeing 777 is usually around five hundred people.
