The second emergency landing in two days at an airport in the Portuguese mainland was reported today after a Transavia flight diverted to Faro early on Monday.
The Transavia service from Funchal to Amsterdam had 149 people on board.
Passengers and crew had to don emergency oxygen masks when the aircraft depressurised in mid-flight. The Captain headed to Faro airport where he safely landed the aeroplane at 12.51 on Monday.
On Sunday, a flight made an emergency landing, at the third attempt, at Beja airport (pictured) after an instrument failure.
On both occasions, the Air Force scrambled F-16 fighter jets to observe and play a communications role with ground emergency teams. The jets, should things go wrong with civilian flights, also are integral to any search and rescue operation.
The Air Astana Flight KC1388 landed safely at Portugal’s Beja Airport Sunday afternoon after declaring a “general emergency” and experiencing “uncontrollable” aircraft issues in-flight. There were no passengers aboard the flight.
The Embraer 190 departed from Lisbon's Humberto Delgado Airport, where it was being serviced but developed severe technical issues mid-flight.
According to audio communication between the pilots and air traffic control, the plane’s instruments were unusable and pilots had no control over the aircraft.
With bad weather conditions near Lisbon Airport and without functioning landing systems, the pilots began preparing for the worst-case scenario of ditching the plane.
The Air Astana flight landed heavily at Beja airport, leading to two crew members, one English and one Kazakstani, being taken to hospital: one for a rush of high blood pressure and the other for treatment for the light injuries suffered on landing.
Two pilots and four technicians were aboard the aircraft. It had spent six weeks undergoing maintenance, and was intended to operate a “ferry flight” to Minsk in Belarus – the first stage of a journey to Kazakhstan, the home of Air Astana.
The aircraft had spent some time flying over the region north of Lisbon and the Alentejo in an uneven flight path and later was escorted to Beja by two F-16s.
The aircraft had suffered a "critical flaw in navigation and flight control systems."
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