Plane overshoots runway in Aklan
A Zest Airways plane overshot the runway at the Caticlan Airport yesterday morning, shutting down the gateway nearest to Boracay Island for several hours.
Yesterday’s was the second incident involving a Zest Airways plane in six months. January this year, another of its plane was damaged when it missed the runway and hit a concrete wall. Several of its passengers, including foreigners, suffered injuries and some had to be hospitalized.
Caticlan Airport Office-in-charge Ma. Meceni Torres told The News Today over the phone yesterday that the Zest Airways-owned MA60 plane overshot runway 24 and went to rest on a grassy portion alongside runway 06 at about 7:53 a.m. yesterday.
RPC-8892 was flying in from Manila, and was carrying 59 persons on board, 54 of whom were passengers and the rest are flight crew.
Fortunately, none was hurt, not even slight or minor injuries, Torres said.
“The passengers themselves walked to the terminal without any help,” she noted.
RPC-8892 was piloted by Capt. Bernard Hervoso, and assisted by First Officer Jeffrey Lim, the same co-pilot when RPC-8893 missed the runway last January. Torres expressed amusement that Lim figured in another incident at Caticlan airport, but did not comment further.
Torres declined to comment on the cause of the overshooting, saying that they are not authorized. Only the investigators from our head office can say what the cause is, Torres explained.
“We leave it to our investigators,” she stressed.
Torres said that crash investigators from the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines central office will be flying in to assess the incident.
In the meantime, the plane will not be moved until CAAP experts shall have finished their investigation into the cause of the crash, Torres said.
But based on the external appearance, the plane is not damaged, only that the landing gear sunk in the soft ground, she described.
Meanwhile, flights to and from Caticlan were diverted to the nearby Kalibo Airport. At this time of the year, when there are fewer tourists to Boracay Island, there are about 30 flights daily to and from Caticlan Airport, Torres said.