Plane aborts TA takeoff after vehicles dart onto runway

A Hungarian airliner was forced to abort its takeoff at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv on Tuesday, after two airport vehicles drove onto the runway as the plane was speeding toward takeoff.

The two vehicles, belonging to the Israel Airports Authority, drove onto the runway as the Wizz Air plane was accelerating. The pilot was forced to carry out an emergency stop and managed to avoid hitting the cars, Channel 10 reported.

Air traffic controllers saw the vehicles make their way onto the runway and ordered the plane to halt, Army Radio reported.

The plane took off soon after for Budapest, and no one was injured in the incident. A Transportation Ministry investigation was launched into how the vehicles were permitted to travel into the path of an airplane that was taking off. The two vehicles had driven onto the runway in contravention of airport rules.

This is the second potentially catastrophic lapse at the airport in weeks. Last month, a back wheel and part of the braking system fell off a Delta Air Lines plane during a takeoff, Israeli television reported.

The debris “plunged down onto the runway” and was left there for some five hours, during which 10 further flights took off from the same runway, because a warning system highlighting the danger was dismissed as a false alarm. Only with daybreak were the scattered parts seen on the runway, which was then closed and cleared.