“TAP confirms that the flight from Lisbon to Vienna returned to Lisbon, in absolute safety,” an official source from the airline told Lusa.

The passengers continue their journey on another plane. Flight TP1272 took off at 2:13 pm and returned to Lisbon just over an hour later, according to FlightRadar24, a website that allows you to track flights.

On 17 April, TAP had already guaranteed that it was aware of the episodes of odours that have led to emergency landings, highlighting that this is a residual percentage of flights and a transversal issue across the sector. The day before, a TAP Airbus A320 plane had made an emergency landing at Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport, in Porto, due to a case of fume inhalation

On 11 March, the alleged presence of fumes on board and the indisposition of some crew members led the TAP Airbus A321neo, with 192 passengers, to divert to Porto, after taking off from Lisbon bound for London, according to the quarterly bulletin of the Office for the Prevention and Investigation of Aircraft and Railway Accidents (GPIAAF).

According to the GPIAAF, there was prior information from the flight crew about previous problems with smells in the aircraft, relating to the same day, on the two previous flights. On the first flight between Lisbon and Funchal, “the presence of strange smells in the rear area of ​​the aircraft” was reported.

In Funchal, maintenance services carried out an inspection of the two engines and the APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) “without any reported anomalies”, while on the second flight, from Funchal to Lisbon, “strange smells were reported at take-off, however they disappeared shortly afterwards”.

In 2024, there were 1,249 reports of such occurrences in the European database, the same office revealed.