A flight to Boston was axed minutes before it left the runway after the pilot spotted an engine problem.

The Delta aircraft was due to fly from LF Wade International Airport at 2.52pm on Wednesday afternoon.

One passenger said he heard a loud bang just before the plane was about to leave the runway.

Businessman Glenn Kelley said: “We had a lot of speed going then everyone heard a bang noise. We were about to lift off but the pilot upon hearing this noise slammed on the brakes and aborted leaving the ground.

“The pilot said they he thought a tyre was blown out and they were going to check the tyres. They made an announcement a while later and said that it was not a blown tyre and they were investigating what happened. After quite a while they had all passengers deplane and wait in the terminal until further notice.

“I heard that there was some metal in the left engine. There was talk that a compressor broke in the engine, causing the loud bang.

“It was a very good thing the pilot decided to abort the take-off. It was somewhat unsettling and it happened so quickly.

“I was sitting near the engine that had the problem. It felt like instead of the engine revving up more, gaining more power, it slowed down and something was wrong.”

Mr Kelley said the passengers had to wait hours for another flight.

“It was a real inconvenience,” he added. “We waited at the terminal for over seven hours. Delta decided to use the Delta plane that was going to arrive in Bermuda from JFK at around 9.45pm.

“We took off at around 11.15 pm, over 8 hours after the original departure time.”

Airport General Manager Aaron Adderley confirmed the flight had been aborted due to an engine problem.

He said: “The pilot aborted take-off when the aircraft recorded a few malfunctions with one of the engines.

“As a precautionary measure the pilot returned the aircraft to the terminal building.

The aircraft is still here awaiting repairs and those should be completed within the next two days.

“The passengers were never in any danger and were flown out on a later flight — the arriving Delta flight from JFK was used to fly them out to Boston later that night.”