A packed passenger jet had to make two dramatic low passes over Munich Airport after a tail strike during take-off sparked fears it had suffered serious damage.

The Vietnam Airlines flight VN34 clipped the lights as it rotated late during take off with 271 passengers and 16 crew on board on Saturday, causing a loud bang that caused concern in the cabin.

Video filmed by passengers appears to show the aircraft using almost the full length of runway 26L before becoming airborne. Footage taken from outside the airport shows a plume of dust rising as the jet lifted off at the end of the 4km runway.

Another image from outside the aircraft, heading to Hanoi, shows a large cloud of dust just as the flight lifts off the ground.

Passenger Pham Duc Ninh said: ‘The nose of the plane lifted off the runway and passengers heard a rather loud pop sound.

‘Everyone looked at each other curiously, wondering what had happened.’

Vietnam’s Civil Aviation Authority said the aircraft’s speed briefly stopped increasing during the take-off roll before recovering, then dropped again moments later.

With too little runway left to safely reject the take-off, the pilots advanced the throttles to maximum power and continued.

Vietnamese authorities said the nose of the plane lifted with around 91 metres of runway remaining.

In the cockpit, warnings indicated a tail strike and tyre damage after the aircraft became airborne.

The crew decided to return to Munich Airport but before that could happen they entered a holding pattern to dump fuel.

The aircraft carried out two low passes over the airport to allow air traffic controllers and ground staff to visually inspect the landing gear.

It landed around two hours after departure on runway 26R and passengers were disembarked using mobile stairs.

Pictures from the tarmac show four blown tyres and damage consistent with a runway tail strike on the underside of the rear fuselage.

Nobody was injured in the incident which is now being investigated by Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation.

The aircraft remains grounded in Munich and flight recorder and cockpit voice recorder data are expected to be analysed as part of the inquiry.

Four days later in a separate incident, a Lufthansa Airbus carrying 351 passengers from San Francisco hit runway lights as it touched down short of runway 26L.

Lufthansa said the aircraft struck at least one runway threshold light, damaging several tyres. The jet completed its landing and taxied to the apron without further incident.

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