EasyJet flight: Pilots declare emergency on approach to Gatwick Airport due to 'smoke throughout cabin'

Pilots of an easyJet flight from Funchal, Portugal, to London's Gatwick Airport declared an emergency mid-flight due to "smoke throughout the cabin". The incident occurred last night (Monday 26 February) with users on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, posting that the flight had declared an emergency on approach to Gatwick Airport.

Keen aviation lovers spotted that the flight had "dropped to 10,000ft" over France. A user named Ben posted on X: "I saw this! Dropped to 10,000 ft over France." A user named Ryan posted that there seemed to be "a lot of fire engines and rangers surrounding it after it came off the runway" with another user also stating the same thing. The user wrote: "I can’t recall I’ve seen THAT many ground vehicles (i.e emergency vehicles) on radar then after this landing. Not that it says a lot as such vehicles aren’t always visible on radar but I could count 14 around the a/c at one point."

Another user on X questioned whether the plane had been "hijacked" due to the amount of emergency vehicles waiting for it on the runway. The user posted: "Can #aviationlovers pls tell me what happened to EZY41TX (EasyJet), is it hijacked? Why are there trucks waiting for it?".

According to users on social media the easyJet flight U28522 reportedly landed safely back at Gatwick Airport. FlightEmergency posted on X that "smoke throughout the cabin is the reason for this emergency".

An easyJet spokesperson said: “Flight EZY8522 from Madeira to London Gatwick yesterday evening experienced a technical issue which resulted in a smoke smell in the flight deck. The flight landed normally and was met by emergency services on arrival as a precaution only. The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is easyJet's highest priority and easyJet operates its fleet of aircraft in strict compliance with all manufacturers’ guidelines.”