A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history.
The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said.
The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement.
Photo: EPA
The four crew members on the plane, which was operated by Turkey’s AirACT on behalf of Emirates Airlines, were rescued and taken to the hospital.
At a briefing held hours after the incident, the Airport Authority said the weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident. The plane had not sent any distress signal, officials said.
Hong Kong’s Air Accident Investigation Authority is investigating the cause of the crash and is searching for the plane’s black boxes, including the flight data recorder and cabin recorder.
Photo: AFP
Police said they would not rule out launching a criminal investigation.
Helicopters from the Government Flying Service and vessels from the Fire Services Department have been deployed, media reports said.
One of the three runways at the airport — one of the busiest in Asia — has been closed, although the Airport Authority said the more than 1,000 flight movements scheduled for yesterday would operate as normal.
An official notice to pilots said the runway was expected to remain closed until at least 6pm today.
In a statement, Emirates said the aircraft was wet leased from, and operated by, Act Airlines. The crew are confirmed to be safe and there was no cargo onboard.
In wet leases, the company supplying the plane also provides the crew and maintenance to the airline client.
The 32-year-old plane had taken off from Dubai’s Al Maktoum International Airport, with flight code EK9788.
Images of the stricken jet at Hong Kong airport show the plane partially submerged, with its rear section, including the tailfin, missing.
A large section of the plane rested on the seawall. Both of the plane’s emergency slides were deployed.
The accident marks one of the most serious at the airport. In 1999, three people died when a China Airlines flight crashed while landing during a typhoon and flipped upside down.
Yesterday’s incident echoes another China Airlines accident at the old Kai Tak Airport, when a 747 overran the runway during typhoon conditions.
The jet was submerged in water beyond the end of the runway, with about two dozen passengers and crew injured.
Additional reporting by AFP
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
A ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was seized and taken toward Iran and another — a cargo ship near Oman — sank after being attacked, authorities said on Thursday, as tensions escalated near the Strait of Hormuz. It was not immediately clear who was behind these incidents, but they happened as a senior Iranian official reiterated his country’s claim of control over the waterway and another said it had a right to seize oil tankers connected to the US. The turmoil in the strait has been a sticking point for weeks in talks between the US and Iran to
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
RSS