Sri Lanka reopened on Thursday its only international airport, closed for most of the night after a Russian cargo plane made an emergency belly landing, aviation officials said.
No one was hurt in the incident, triggered by problems with the nose wheel of the Russian-made Ilyushin 18 that forced the pilot to make the belly-landing at 1630 GMT on Wednesday.
Two engines and the aircraft’s belly were seriously damaged, but there was no major damage to the runway, the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka said in a statement. The crew of seven was unhurt.
The Bandaranaike International Airport reopened at 8:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) and is operating normally, an airport official said.
The plane came from Dubai and was operated by Phoenix Aviation, based in the United Arab Emirates.
Flights were diverted to Madras, in neighboring India, and Dubai during the airport closure.
By: Old Git - 6th February 2004 at 17:10
I don’t know how many IL 18s they have but they are in and out of Jeddah all the time (I saw one land yesterday as a matter of fact). They must also be getting pretty long in the tooth now as well.
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February 5, 2004 at 10:36 pm