Airport closed after plane forced to make emergency landing | US | News

Officials confirmed that JetBlue Flight 543 left Newark around 5:45 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 18, bound for West Palm Beach. Minutes after takeoff, the pilots observed an engine failure and alerted the New Jersey airport that it was turning back for an emergency landing.

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Just 17 minutes later the wheels landed on the asphalt. The drama appeared to be over until the flight crew noticed smoke billowing from the cockpit.

Passengers were ordered to evacuate immediately by Jet Blue’s quick-thinking flight attendant via the plane’s inflatable emergency slides. This caused the US Federal Aviation Administration to issue an immediate ground stop at the airport, and as a result all inbound and outbound flights were halted.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed that normal operations have resumed at the airport as of 19:00 local time.

Although flights have resumed, this does not mean that the flight schedule is back to normal. Although the airport was closed for a short time, this knock-on effect was significant for passengers.

Incoming flights are currently delayed by an average of two hours and three minutes compared to the time of this writing. Flights departing from Newark experience delays of an average of one and a half hours.

Delays are expected to continue as the airport works through the backlog. While most flights are currently listed as “delayed” rather than canceled, passengers should expect some flights to be removed from the schedule as crews reach their duty limits due to wait times.

There were no injuries on the JetBlue flight that triggered chaos at the airport, after 17 terrifying minutes in the sky.