Holiday terror as engine cover falls off easyJet plane seconds after take-off

An investigation has been launched after an engine cover fell off a packed easyJet holiday plane seconds after it took off.

Terrified holidaymakers watched as the panel broke lose from the engine as the Airbus A320 pulled up from the runway.

The pilot of the plane was quickly told of the incident and passengers given a safety briefing as the jet circled for twenty minutes before landing safely.

Fire engines were on standby but the passengers and crew were all taken off the packed jet safely using the staircase without emergency chutes having to be deployed.

The drama happened on Monday evening just seconds after the British registered jet had taken off from Milan’s Malpensa airport bound for the Portuguese capital of Lisbon with 174 passengers and six crew onboard.

It had reached a take off speed of more than 200mph when it lifted off the runway and the engine cover fell away seconds later - creating a potential disaster for other jets - in 2000 a Concorde crashed in Paris after one of its tyres was punctured by debris lost from a previous plane.

Holidaymaker Filippo Guazzini, from Pisa, who was on the easyJet flight with his girlfriend, posted on his Facebook site, how the engine cover came away in front of his eyes. He wrote:”We had just taken off and I looked out the window and saw this piece of metal fly off.

“It fell away right in front of my eyes and I started screaming 'A piece of the wing has gone flying'. The cabin crew came and had a look and then one went to tell the captain. He came over the PA system a few minutes later and said there had been a problem and we were turning back.

“We were circling for twenty minutes before we landed again and the crew were trying to keep everybody calm but it was an experience I don’t want to go through again.”

Passengers held their breathe as the plane touched down safely with the airport closed while maintenance teams cleared the debris from the runway which had also been spotted falling away by the control tower.