Nepal: Plane skids off runway, close shave for 139 people
All 139 people on board a Malaysian passenger plane had a miraculous escape when their Kuala Lumpur-bound flight skidded off the runway and got stuck in mud while attempting to take off from Nepal's only international airport. Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) was forced to halt all international flights after the incident involving Malindo Air jet late last night, The Kathmandu Post reported.
"The flight captain aborted take-off after he saw an error on the monitor inside the cockpit," TIA general manager Raj Kumar Chettri. But the aircraft couldn't stop because of the takeoff speed and load at the final moment and overran 50m south from the runway threshold. The aircraft has not suffered any damage, but the front tyre has been stuck in the mud.
The TIA airport today resumed international flight operations after a suspension of over 12 hours leading to the cancellation of at least a dozen international flights after the incident. There were 139 people, including four crew members, on board the Boeing 737-900, registration 9M-LNJ. No casualty has been caused due to the incident, the report said.
The latest incident is one of the many plane accidents that Nepal's TIA airport has witnessed in recent years. Last month, a Dhaka to Kathmandu bound US-Bangla Airlines flight, with 67 passengers and four crew members on board, caught fire after it careened off the runway and ploughed into a football ground near TIA, killing 51 people and injuring others.
