An aeroplane-obsessed Kiwi teen returning from a family holiday in Samoa has captured the dramatic moment an Air New Zealand flight was forced to abort its take-off in Apia.
Emily Ronberg, 17, filmed the incident while leaning over her 9-year-old sister Maddy, who’d scored the coveted window seat on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner as the Beachlands family and hundreds of others prepared for the flight to Auckland on Saturday.
“I won’t even talk to you about the family arguments that happened to get the window seat sorted … basically I’m getting the Nobel Peace Prize,” dad Al Ronberg told the Herald today.
But the real drama was yet to come.
About 30 seconds after NZ993 began its take-off roll along the runway at Samoa’s main airport, the brakes were applied and the flaps extended, slowing the 787 before it could become airborne.
The captain could then be heard over the tannoy saying, “Cabin crew remain seated, wait for instructions,” before Emily’s footage ended.
Al Ronberg later posted the video to Instagram, where it’s been watched more than 50,000 times in three days.
The only abnormal thing before take-off was the “crazy rain”, Ronberg said.
“It was all just normal take-off and then all of a sudden it felt like we’d hit something because the brakes are so, so hard. I was like, ’Oh my gosh, there’s a cow on the runway or something’.”
His eyes were on his kids, but Emily saw other passengers going into the brace position, the dad-of-three said.
“We were thrown forward in the seats – it’s quite amazing how when you put your brakes on in the car, it’s exaggerated, but in the plane you definitely get thrown forward a little bit. But people were pretty calm … there was no screaming or yelling.
“Then it was just the very cool, calm, collected cabin crew [telling us] ‘Please stay seated till further instructions’.”
The captain then spoke to everyone on the flight, which Ronberg said was almost full.
“He was really good, real clear … [he said] ‘There was a warning sign and we’ve had to reject take-off’.”
The plane returned to the airport’s parking apron where a fire crew monitored the aircraft until the brakes cooled down, Ronberg said.
Passengers waited on board for about two hours until the flight was cleared to take off again – some applauding as it left the ground – but were well looked after, with water available, the crew taking details of those with connecting flights, and everyone kept up to date, Ronberg said.
“It wasn’t sort of clueless. The pilot would tell us things we needed to know, where it was at.”
Passengers weren’t, however, told how close the 787 had been to V1, the “point of no return” speed at which pilots must make their final take-off decision.
“I [was] sitting there thinking, ‘Man, that must have come real close – and I’m glad they could stop before they didn’t have any other options’.”
In 40 years of passenger flying he’d never experienced an aborted take-off, the Auckland school teacher said.
A former flight attendant commented on Ronberg’s Instagram post that they’d been on board for 10 rejected take-offs over their 12-year career.
The aviation-addicted dad and daughter – who, with Maddy, were joined on the week-long holiday in Samoa by his wife, Christine, a school nurse, and middle daughter Chloe, 15 – weren’t put off by the unusual occurrence.
“No way – it was exciting,” Ronberg said.
“[We] were secretly quite excited because we knew what happened was really rare, and we’re both plane geeks. Emily is absolutely obsessed with planes and wants to be a flight attendant.”
Air NZ chief operating officer Alex Marren confirmed the disruption to NZ993 on Saturday.
“NZ993 from Apia to Auckland returned to the gate for additional engineering inspections after pilots noted an alert while preparing for takeoff.
“The aircraft was cleared to return to service and departed shortly after 5pm.”
Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.