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Smoke stops American Eagle flight at U of I airport

SAVOY, Ill. — 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.

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