Plane lands short of Munich runway

5 January 2004

MUNICH – An Austrian Airlines plane with engine troubles belly-landed in a snow-covered field short of the runway of Munich’s international airport on Monday, with three persons suffering slight injuries, officials reported.

A statement by the Munich airport said that the Fokker-70 turboprop plane had 28 passengers and a crew of four on board on the regular OS-111 Austrian Airlines flight from Vienna to Munich.

Just before the plane’s scheduled landing at 7:50 (0650 GMT), the pilot radioed that he was having engine problems and was preparing for an emergency landing.

The plane landed about 8:15 on a snow-covered field. The Munich airport statement said the landing site was some 3.5 kilometres short of the Munich airport’s southern runway.

The pilot did not lower the plane’s landing gear, but instead st the plane down flat on the main fuselage. The aircraft then slid across the field before coming to a halt.

Most of the plane’s passengers were able to disembark unassisted through the aircraft’s doors. Two passengers who were injured were treated in hospital while a third passenger suffered a slight shock.

The passengers were brought to Munich airport where emergency services were providing assistance.

“There is no great excitement,” an airport spokesman said about the passengers’ mental state after the emergency landing. “Most of them took it in stride.”

German aviation authorities had begun an investigation into the cause of the plane’s problems, with officials also questioning the pilots and reviewing flight recording data.

The international Franz Josef Strauss airport is located some 30 kilometres northeast of Munich.

DPA
Subject: German news