Milan's Malpensa International Airport temporarily halted operations on Thursday evening after an incident involving a British airline EasyJet plane. The plane, an Airbus A320 bound for Prague with 146 passengers on board, was still taxiing on the runway before takeoff when smoke was detected inside the cabin. The pilot immediately activated emergency procedures and the takeoff was aborted.

Passengers were evacuated from the plane via emergency slides. Two people suffered minor injuries while exiting the plane. It is suspected that the smoke may have come from the explosion of a portable battery in a passenger's hand luggage. However, this version has not yet been officially confirmed and authorities are investigating the exact causes of the incident.

The incident led to the temporary suspension of operations at the airport. Runway 35L reopened at around 18:35 local time, while runway 35R remained closed for longer to allow the involved aircraft to leave and for security checks to be carried out.

Operations at Malpensa returned to normal at around 19:30 p.m., after nearly an hour of disruption. Italian authorities have launched investigations to determine the full cause of the incident and to verify whether the portable battery was the source of the smoke reported in the cabin.