Xiamen Airlines Flight Crash-Lands in Manila
A flight landing in Manila on Thursday night after a two and a half hour trip from southern China skidded off the side of the runway thanks to bad weather; luckily there were no major injuries or deaths reported. This was the airplane’s second attempt at landing the flight—the first attempt was aborted.
On Thursday night, bad weather caused a Xiamen Airlines flight to crash land at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, the Philippines.
“On August 16, 2018, Xiamen Airlines Flight MF8667 from Xiamen to Manila experienced a runway excursion while landing at Manila Airport at 23:55 Beijing time,” Xiamen Airlines posted in a social media statement reported by Business Insider. “The crew immediately initiated emergency evacuation procedures.”
No injuries were sustained in the crash, though a few people suffered some minor scratching while they were evacuating the plane. Thunderstorms and low visibility in the area caused the pilot to overshoot the runway, and the plane skidded off the end of it and had its left engine ripped off. The plane stopped near the fenced perimeter of the airport.
“At 23:08 hours local time the flight had descended to FL180 towards Manila,” the Aviation Safety Network posted. “It entered a holding pattern to the north-east of the airport for about 14 minutes before positioning for an approach to runway 24. The approach was aborted at 23:40 and the aircraft position for another approach. The aircraft touched down at 23:55 but went off the runway. At the time of the accident a thunderstorm was passing the airport.”
In the aftermath of the accident, the airport shut down several runways to aid with damage recovery, causing the cancellation of dozens of flights.
The crash occurred during the second landing attempt Flight MF8667 tried; the first attempt was 15 minutes earlier and the crew aborted it.
[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons]
glad all survived.
“Causing the cancellation of dozens of flights”. I was there all day and night Friday and Saturday. Hundreds of flights cancelled, and the only runway capable of handling wide body aircraft was shut for a full 36 hours. For the first 14 hours the recovery team seemed to just stand around and look at the plane. Finally around hour 15 someone got the bright idea to bring in a crane and initiate a removal of the plane. It was total chaos and the airlines kept telling passengers they were getting no information from the airport authority. Not that I’d expect anything better from NAIA but it was a maddeningly slow and disorganized recovery.