Easyjet plane aborts take-off at Luton over airspeed issues

A flight from London Luton Airport was aborted over air speed concerns

An Easyjet plane was forced to abort a take-off at London Luton Airport after crew reported discrepancies in its air speed indicators.

The Airbus A319-111 had been parked at Luton for almost a month before it was taken for the proposed flight in July last year, investigators said.

It ran into difficulty following "a long period on the ground".

Only the pilot and co-pilot were on board at the time, an Air Accidents Investigation Branch report said.

The plane had been flown from Edinburgh to Luton in June last year, but was then parked at Luton for almost a month between 14 June until 13 July.

"The pilots were aware that the aircraft had been parked for a protracted period and had heard of aircraft suffering issues with blocked pitot tubes in similar circumstances," said the report.

Pitot probes or tubes measure air flow and pressure in planes.

The commander and his co-pilot began preparations for take-off, agreeing to make any discrepancy of airspeed indications clear to each other.

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But the flight was aborted after one of the the airspeed indicators failed to move from minimum.

The plane was now "accelerating very quickly" on the runway when the commander took the decision to abort and it stopped "approximately 350m (1148ft) from the end of the runway".

Investigators concluded: "The aircraft suffered an airspeed discrepancy resulting from a blocked pitot probe.

"The crew recognised the fault and the take-off was rejected."

The plane's pitot systems were flushed out following the incident and some debris was found, but the content was not kept so could not be identified.

The plane had been subjected to regularly weekly checks prior to the incident, which included the removal of pitot covers, the report said.