A plane carrying Manchester City staff, including the club ambassador and former player Mike Summerbee, plus sponsors and travelling journalists heading to Bucharest for Tuesday’s Champions League play-off against Steaua was evacuated on the runway at Manchester airport on Monday morning.
The flight was due to take off at 10.30am BST and was around 60% full when a smoke-like haze appeared in the cabin.
Several fire engines were quickly at the scene and all passengers disembarked the aircraft safely. Following an inspection it was apparent that an air-conditioning fault was to blame for the haze.
One member of the cabin crew told passengers to leave the plane and as some got their luggage to leave, another member of the flight’s staff shouted for them to “leave your stuff and go, go, go”.
The passengers were directed back on to the plane, run by Romanian airline Carpatair, after the inspection and were told it is “perfectly safe”.
“After reports of an air conditioning fault, passengers on the Carpatair charter flight to Bucharest were disembarked back to the terminal as a precaution,” a statement from Manchester airport said.
City’s playing and coaching staff flew to Romania on Sunday – without Yaya Touré.
Four fire engines with sirens on now coming to plane. Cabin had started to fill with smoke. Everyone from City on runway.
— Daniel Taylor (@DTguardian) August 15, 2016
I have a coat, a laptop and a packet of sports mixture on the back row of this plane pic.twitter.com/SO7sEWLC4n
— Daniel Taylor (@DTguardian) August 15, 2016
