Footage circulating widely on social media showed a huge plume of smoke trailing behind the plane after its tail suddenly dropped on the asphalt as it accelerated for take-off.
Witnesses also told Corriere della Sera that they saw sparks fly from the back of the plane.
The pilots succeeded in getting the planeoff the ground before it asked the air traffic control tower to land back at the Milan airport for a safety inspection.
According to data from the online flight tracker Flightradar24, the aircraft made nine loops in the area before it returned to its original departure point approximately 70 minutes later.
An aviation expert told Corriere della Sera: “The pilots were good, from what we can see, at not panicking, at continuing to maintain control of the aircraft until it took flight because if they had interrupted takeoff, they would have killed everyone on board”.
The incident is now under investigation by Italy’s National Agency for the Safety of Flight, who are also in contact with authorities in Brazil and the United States.
There have been no reported injuries following the ordeal.
While the cause of the tail strike is at this stage undetermined, it comes at a time when Boeing is under heavy scrutiny after making several serious errors.
The aerospace company recently agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge following two fatal crashes involving a 737 Max, which left 346 people dead.
The first deadly crash happened on October 29, 2018, when a plane departed from Jakarta, Indonesia, and the second occurred on March 10, 2019, when a flight took off from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The US Justice Department said that Boeing will also pay a criminal fine of $243.6 million (NZ$396.6m).
Passengers also recently experienced chaos on a Latam Airlines flight. In March, the airline apologised to passengers on a flight that plunged mid-trip from Sydney to Auckland, offering to reimburse them for any expenses incurred.
