EL Al plane forced to land after engine failure

An El Al airliner with nearly 200 people on board was forced to make an emergency landing overnight Saturday-Sunday at Ben Gurion airport after one of its engines failed shortly after takeoff.

About half an hour into a scheduled flight from Tel Aviv to Ontario, Canada, the pilot of the Boeing 767 informed Israeli authorities that one of the engines had malfunctioned and stopped working.

The plane turned back to Israel as emergency services at the airport scrambled into action. Fire-fighting crews and ambulances massed near the runway in preparation for the return of the plane, which was carrying 194 passengers and crew.

The pilot performed a successful emergency landing and passengers were transferred to another aircraft to continue their journey.

“We consider flight safety as the highest value,” El Al said, and noted that it would launch an immediate investigation into the incident.

In July a New York-bound Delta Air Lines flight from Israel declared an emergency and returned to Tel Aviv after flaps on the jumbo jet failed to retract properly on takeoff, the airline said at the time. Flight 469 — a Boeing 747 with 370 passengers and 17 crew members aboard — landed safely back at Ben Gurion Airport about two hours after it left for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

A month earlier an El Al flight bound for Cyprus was forced to return to Ben Gurion Airport after its wings malfunctioned shortly after takeoff. That plane was carrying over a hundred passengers and was able to land safely after the pilot emptied the fuel tanks off the coast of Tel Aviv.