‘Engine issue’ leads to Toronto flight to Paris returning to Pearson

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A scary moment, or moments, for some 389 passengers on an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Paris on Wednesday evening.

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AC872 left Pearson International Airport at 8:45 p.m. only to return “shortly after departure,” says Air Canada “due to an engine issue that was determined to be a compressor stall.”

“The aircraft landed normally, and it was met by first responder vehicles as a precaution before it taxied to the gate on its own,” said Air Canada in a statement to the Toronto Sun.

“Passengers were accommodated on another aircraft later that same evening. There were 389 passengers and 13 crew onboard the Boeing 777 aircraft.”

Air Canada Flight status shows AC872 eventually left Pearson at 1:32 a.m. on Thursday morning and arrived in Paris at 2:48 p.m. local time.

A 27-second video posted on X, formerly Twitter, shows the flight taking off and flames shooting out the side of it while a man’s voice can be heard saying: “Holy crap, it’s got an engine fire!”

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“Video posted to the internet of the incident shows the engine at the point of compressor stall, which can happen with a turbine engine when its aerodynamics are affected,” said Air Canada in its statement.

“This can be caused by various factors, but the result is the flow of air through the engine is disrupted causing fuel to ignite further down the engine, which is why flames are visible in the video. It is not the engine itself on fire.”

No injuries were reported on the flight.

“Our pilots are highly skilled professionals well trained to safely manage such incidents and in this case the situation was quickly stabilized as per our standard procedures and the aircraft landed normally,” continued Air Canada in its statement.

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Even Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield was impressed with the way the incident was handled writing on his X account, @CmdrHadfield, alongside the video clip: “Superb work by the pilots and their air traffic controllers, dealing with a backfiring engine on takeoff. Heavy plane full of fuel, low cloud thunderstorms, repeated compression stalls. Calm, competent, professional – well done!”

A spokesperson for the Greater Toronto Airport Authority confirmed to the Toronto Sun on Friday that the plane was met by Toronto Pearson’s fire department after landing safely.

Air Canada told Global News that the aircraft would be taken out of service for evaluation by maintenance staff and engineers.

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