Lajes Field's runway reopens
after Canadian airliner is moved
By Scott Schonauer,
Rota bureau
Tech. Sgt. Scott Johnson / U.S.
Air Force
An Air Transat Airbus A330 sits on the Lajes Field runway after crash landing on Friday. |
NAVAL STATION ROTA, Spain — Military commanders reopened Lajes
Field’s runway Monday after moving a Canadian airliner that crash-landed at the U.S.
Air Force logistics base in the Portuguese Azores islands.
The charter jet, bound from Toronto to Lisbon with more than 300
aboard, was forced to make an emergency landing at Terceira Island without power on
Friday, destroying the landing gear.
Around noon on Monday, Air Force ground technicians helped put on new
tires and towed the aircraft to a parking spot. The Air Force planned to resume flying
shortly after workers removed debris and repaired the runway pavement, base spokeswoman
Staff Sgt. Beverly Isik said.
The crippled plane had shut down the airfield, a routine stopover for
some military transport planes between Europe and the United States. Dozens of military
personnel trying to reach or leave the base have been stuck.
“It’s not only affected us but also people who are supposed
to be home but are on leave,” Isik said.
Flights to the island base — 900 miles west of Portugal —
are a critical lifeline to the base and Americans stationed at Lajes.
Since the closure, the base has not received any mail and the
commissary has missed a couple of food shipments. The next commissary air-freighted
shipment isn’t expected to arrive until Thursday at the earliest, Isik said.
Some, however, might consider that trivial considering what people
aboard the Air Transat plane went through on Friday’s frantic flight.
Passengers reportedly put on life vests and were expecting the pilots
to ditch the plane into the Atlantic Ocean. But the pilot was able to glide the airliner
safely to Lajes.
Passengers are calling the landing a “miracle.”
Airmen who responded also are surprised the pilot was able to pull it
off.
“He came in, and he was high, and we didn’t know if he was
going to go by,” Staff Sgt. Tony Yuresko, aerospace ground equipment apprentice, said
in a base press release. “He hit the pavement and bounced along until coming to a
stop with about 2,500 feet of runway remaining.”
Base Safety Officer Maj. Lyle Decker said emergency response
personnel told him the plane’s wheels hit the ground and then the entire landing gear
burst into flames. Firemen from the base put out the blazing wheels. Passengers exited the
aircraft by inflatable ramps.
“It was obvious the plane didn’t have any power, because it
was completely dark, and it seemed like the pilot glided in and then slammed on the
brakes,” Decker said.
Most of the passengers were taken to the civilian airport terminal,
but a few passengers were treated for minor injuries at the base clinic, Isik said.
Passengers were taken to Lisbon on Saturday.
Investigators are still trying to learn why the airliner lost engine
power and had to make the landing.
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