A COUPLE have told how their Spanish holiday ended with an emergency evacuation from the plane when they landed back in Lancashire.

Ronald and Elizabeth Fisher from Blackburn were on a Jet2 flight that had just touched down in Blackpool when they heard the pilot shout ‘evacuate, evacuate, evacuate’.

Smoke was visible above one wing.

Mr Fisher, a retired BAE Systems aircraft engineer, said he knew there was a problem when the Boeing 737 seemed to come in to land too quickly.

The 66-year-old, of Shorrock Lane, said: “You get lulled into a false sense of security because air travel is so safe now, but when it goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong.

“When the pilot touched the brakes, there was a lot of squealing from the starboard side. I think he must have cooked one of the brakes. The smoke was coming back over the rear of the wing.

“We knew there was something wrong because we could feel the judder.

“I am just glad this happened on the ground.”

Once the aeroplane had come to a stop, the passengers were asked to leave by the emergency evacuation slide. Father-of-one Ronald, who was flying with his wife, 57, from Alicante after spending a week in Benidorm, said: “It is the sort of thing you never expect to happen, but when it does, you just get out.

“You know it must be serious if the pilot tells you to evacuate because they shut the airport down, but the safety of the passengers has to be paramount.

“Most people kept really calm but there was an older lady who had had a hip operation and sliding down the chute did not do her any good.

“The cabin crew were absolutely brilliant though.”

An investigation has been launched by the airline to find out exactly what caused the flight to have to be evacuated at around 1.30pm on Friday.