THE Prime Minister’s aircraft was accelerating down the runway. It had reached 90mph and was only seconds from take off. Suddenly there was a loud bang, sparks flew from a starboard engine and then the engine failed altogether. The flight was aborted.

Tony Blair made light of his brush with disaster at Johannesburg airport on Sunday night. “Another few seconds and we would have been in the air. Suddenly there was a bang. I didn’t have time to be particularly worried about it,” he told reporters before making his way back to Britain on a scheduled flight yesterday.

Downing Street said: “In the technical jargon, this is termed a minor incident.”

But The Times has learnt that Mr Blair’s chartered plane was 36 years old, posing the question why the Prime Minister of one of the world’s biggest economies was in such an old, albeit refurbished, aircraft.

The aircraft — converted for VIP passengers — was a DC8 built in 1969 or 1970, though its engines were replaced 16 years ago.

DC8s were the first generation of long-haul aircraft, and have long since been superseded by modern Boeing and Airbus jets. The oldest aircraft in British Airway’s fleet is a 16-year-old Boeing 747 — half the age of the DC8.

Officials could not recall Mr Blair flying on an older private aircraft, although for short-haul flights in Europe he sometimes travels on RAF aircraft that are well over 20 years old.

The answer appears to be economy, though the DC8 cost $10,000 (£5,700) an hour to charter, and came with seating for 30 passengers, two lounges, three large plasma television screens, a conference room with a master bedroom and bathroom.

Mr Blair normally uses a much larger and costlier BA Boeing 777 aircraft — a mere ten years old — on overseas trips. On this occasion he used the smaller DC8 to attend a political conference in South Africa because he did not take a press corps with him.

Although Downing Street said that it was a government trip, and therefore funded mainly by the taxpayer, it was decided that there were not enough public events to make the trip sufficiently interesting for newspapers who pay for their reporters and photographers to go.

Other world leaders fly in their own customised aircraft, but British prime ministers from Margaret Thatcher onwards have refrained from this lest they be accused of extravagance. Periodically during Mr Blair’s leadership the idea of a “Blairforce One” has been mooted and then killed.

Mr Blair was accompanied to South Africa by about ten Downing Street staff, who use his aircraft as mobile offices on his overseas trips, and a number of security officers.

In political terms it proved a false economy. Mr Blair had cut short his visit to return home for the Commons vote last night on identity cards. In the event his flight was aborted at 11.30pm South Africa time and there were no more flights out that night, nor any yesterday morning, that would have got him back in time.

Late on Sunday night a chastened and slightly shaken Prime Minister had to telephone Hilary Armstrong, the Government Chief Whip, from the departure lounge and tell her that he was stranded and would not be able to make it. He then spent the night at the home of the British High Commissioner, the former Treasury Minister Paul Boateng.

It is the second big vote that Mr Blair has missed in two weeks. His absence from a vote on the religious hatred Bill two weeks ago was directly responsible for his second defeat as Prime Minister.

The company that owns the aircraft, Jet Aviation of Zurich, is one of the biggest executive jet charter companies and regularly flies heads of state, VIPs and celebrities. Last night the jet was being inspected to find the cause of the engine failure.

Leon Hustinx, the chief marketing officer of Jet Aviation, said that the DC8 had flown relatively few hours for an aircraft of its age.

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