KUALA LUMPUR/JEDDAH, 25 August — A Saudi Arabian Airlines jumbo jet skidded into a monsoon drain at Kuala Lumpur airport as it taxied to pick up more than 300 passengers. An official Saudia source said nobody was hurt in the accident.
The Boeing 747 had just been repaired in a hangar after problems with an engine prevented it from taking off for Jeddah Thursday night when the mishap occurred, the official Malaysian Bernama news agency reported.
“At 22:08 hours, the control tower officer saw an aircraft skid and go into a monsoon drain at the taxiway delta,” said Kuala Lumpur International Airport operations chief Hamid Awang Hamid.
According to Saudi Arabian Airlines, the mishap took place while the plane was being taxied by maintenance workers to the departure gate of the main airport terminal for the boarding of passengers.
“A Saudia Boeing 747-300 plane drifted from the runway while it was taxied by maintenance workers to the departure gate as it prepared for take off to King Abdul Aziz Airport in Jeddah,” an official source at the airline’s director general’s office told Arab News.
“There were no passengers or crew members on the plane at the time of the accident and nobody was injured,” the source confirmed.
“Saudia has sent a team of experts from its safety and technical department to check the plane and investigate the circumstances that led to the accident,” the source added.
However, Bernama said a four-member crew and two ground workers from the airport were on board when the accident occurred.
The huge aircraft, which crunched onto its nose in the 5-meter (15-foot) wide ditch, could not be towed away immediately and remained in the drain overnight while the 319 passengers were put up at a local hotel. Damage was apparent to the cockpit and the first-class section.
One of two runways was shut after the incident, but no other flights were disrupted, Bernama said. Hamid said Saudi Arabian Airlines flew in 10 experts from Jeddah yesterday and would bring in other experts from Boeing to help remove the plane from the ditch.
The plane on which the experts arrived will fly back late tonight with the 319 stranded passengers, Hamid said. The passengers were mostly Malaysians heading to perform Umrah.
A Saudi Arabian Airlines representative in Kuala Lumpur said it was too early to say what had caused the accident or to assess the extent of the damage.
Hamid said the plane had earlier developed trouble with one of its engines about two hours before the accident. The mechanical fault was soon rectified, and the plane was cleared to pick up the passengers at the departure terminal building when it skidded and fell into the ditch.
