NAIA runway opens after 36-hour shutdown
A Chinese plane that slid off runway 6/24 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport amid the pouring rain Thursday night was finally removed from the muddy spot where it had been stuck for more than a day, officials said, allowing normal operations to resume Saturday.
The runway officially opened at 11:28 a.m. yesterday.
Around 165 international and local flights were cancelled on Friday and Saturday that stranded thousands of passengers after the plane's bumpy landing, said airport media officer Connie Bungag.
The Xiamen Airlines aircraft landed on its second attempt before skidding onto the grass, ripping off its left engine and blocking the runway late Thursday evening.
The 157 passengers and eight crew aboard were able to disembark without suffering any major injuries.
Moving the plane was complicated by heavy rains that softened the ground, making it difficult to install the two cranes needed to lift the aircraft, officials said.
By Saturday noon, flights had resumed their normal schedule, but some passengers were not impressed by the speed of the recovery operation.
"At last," tweeted one disgruntled observer. "That's a record 36 hours."
Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines spokesman Eric Apolonio said investigators had recovered the plane's black box and flight data recorder and would be summoning the pilots next week to find the cause of the mishap.
The airport will schedule special flights after midnight to make up for some of the flights that were cancelled earlier, Bungag told AFP.
135 cancelled flights At about 2:30 a.m. Saturday, airport ground personnel using a crane finally lifted the B737-800 Xiamen Air aircraft from the soft spot of runway 06/24 and towed it to airport’s Balagbag area.
MIAA General Manager Ed Monreal, apologized to the air riding public for all the inconvenience that the closure had caused them.
Monreal said that the runway closure was extended anew because of demobilization of heavy equipment and clearing of debris on the runway.
A total of 135 flights in three NAIA terminals were cancelled and other flights were diverted to other airports – Clark, Cebu, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam on Friday.
The secondary runway 13/31 is operational but was only limited to smaller aircraft such as Airbus A320s, A321s. Wide body planes such as Boeing B777s, Airbus A330s and A340s including A350s are most affected as these can only be accommodated on the main runway 06/24.
Monreal requested airline companies to continuously inform their passengers of their revised flight schedules and make sure that their personnel are at hand to assist passengers’ concerns.
The MIAA advised passengers to also check status of their flights with NAIA flight information at the following numbers: Terminal 1 (8771109 local 765 and 2852), Terminal 2 (8771109 local 2882 and 2880), Terminal 4 (8771109 local 4226) and Terminal 4 (8777888 local 8144 and 8146), or call NAIA hotline 8771111 and visit the NAIA official FB page and Twitter account @MIAAGovPh.
Cebu Pacific Air on Saturday canceled at least seven international and 2 domestic flights after the Civil Aviation Authority extended the temporary closure of the runway.