A major air disaster was averted after an Alaska Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Honolulu, Hawaii, after pilots throttled down one of the plane’s engines.
Flight 145 was headed to Hawaii from Seattle when an oil filter bypass light came on in the cockpit.
The flight crew idled the engine and declared an emergency, but continued to Honolulu where the flight was originally scheduled to land.
“The captain came on the overhead speaker and just said that they were having overheating of one of the engines so they needed to idle a little bit to try to let it cool off but that were going to have to make a quicker landing than usual.
“And we were going to have a fire crew ready when we landed just in case.
“That is about all he said and then he got off quickly,” passenger Carrie Mingle said.
According to reports, the airline said the other engine and all other systems onboard were operating normally.
Originally the emergency landing was going to be in Maui, but since the plane was continuing to travel safely, the pilot continued on to Honolulu.
“Our families called us after we landed because they heard in the news that something was going on. So they were very worried,” Mingle said.
The plane landed safely around 10 p.m. Friday night. No injuries were reported for the 157 passengers and 8 crew-members onboard.
Alaska Airlines was not immediately available for comment.
