A Frontier Airlines plane began spitting flames from one of its engine minutes after departing Cleveland, Ohio, according to reports. Just 15 minutes into its journey to Atlanta, Georgia, the Airbus A321neo was forced to turn around and head back to Cleveland Hopkins International, flight-tracking software showed. Flight F92467 returned to its point of origin safely at around lunchtime on Tuesday, according to Flight Aware, with no injuries reported. Aviation account JonNYC reported that eyewitnesses saw the plane’s engine spitting flames. “Someone says a Frontier flight out of Cleveland today had an engine flame out, about 15 min. after departure, returned to CLE,” the account said, before citing a source: “Plane was above my neighborhood, eyewitness accounts heard what sounded like explosions and they saw flames coming out of the engine in the air.” Simple Flying reports the two-year-old plane is fitted with Pratt & Whitney engines, which have had a challenging launch on the new Airbus model. The specialist outlet reported, “One third of the global fleet is currently grounded due to known manufacturing defects.” It added, “This is just one more entry in the saga of the P&W GTF engine’s disastrous debut.” A Frontier spokeswoman denied there was a fire. “The aircraft in question experienced a mechanical issue shortly after take-off. The crew followed standard procedures, returned to the field and landed safely, ” spokeswoman Jennifer De La Cruz said in a statement to the Daily Beast.
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