Incident at Hamburg Airport: Airbus forced to land shortly after takeoff

Jul 10 2023 Travel trends

In an alarming incident on Thursday morning (06.07), an aircraft was compelled to turn around and land shortly after taking off from Hamburg Airport. The Turkish Airlines Airbus, en route to Istanbul, had just departed from Hamburg when smoke suddenly emanated from the cargo hold. The aircraft, carrying 164 passengers, had to reverse course. A large contingent of firefighters hurried to the runway, and the plane safely landed shortly thereafter. Fortunately, no injuries were reported.

Turkish Airlines: Smoke on board of the airplane

A spokesperson for Turkish Airlines confirmed to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur that the Airbus A321 had to turn around and land in Hamburg due to a "technical issue." Smoke had escaped from an oven used to warm meals onboard.

Precautionary landing, not an emergency landing

"We can confirm the safe landing of the aircraft as the airport. It took off for Istanbul at 7:20 AM and then returned," stated a spokesperson for Hamburg Airport. It was clearly a precautionary landing, not an emergency landing, as there was no acute distress. The aircraft touched down in Hamburg shortly after 8 AM.

The incident did not cause a disruption to air traffic

According to the airport spokesperson, no firefighting was required. The oven is now "inactive," as confirmed by the airline spokesperson. The same aircraft will resume operations shortly. The incident did not affect the scheduled departures and landings. "Air traffic in Hamburg was and is not impacted," added the spokesperson.