Pilot detects smoke, steers plane to safety

Chennai: A Jeddah-bound Saudi Airlines flight with 182 passengers on board was aborted today just before take off after the pilot detected smoke in one of its engines and steered the plane to safety, airport officials said.

According to the officials, the plane was moving on the runway when the pilot detected the smoke and immediately contacted the control room to steer it back to the parking bay.

All the passengers were immediately evacuated from the plane, which was parked in the bay, to enable experts to attend to the technical fault, they said. The flight took off after a three-hour delay, they said.