An American Eagle flight scheduled to fly from the University of Illinois' airport to Dallas-Fort Worth was aborted after crew members noticed smoke in the cockpit during takeoff.
Ted Gonsiorowski is assistant manager at Willard Airport just south of Champaign. He told The News-Gazette that the Embraer ERJ-145 was about a third of the way down the runway when someone noticed the smoke.
He says the 39 passengers left the plane about 8:30 a.m. and were taken back to the terminal to look for other flights. No one was injured.
Mike Kobel of the airport fire department says the plane was checked with a thermal-imaging camera but no fire was found.
The plane was taken to a maintenance hangar for further inspection.
Copyright AP - Associated Press
