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Hebrides News

Stricken plane dug out of rough grass

4 January 2015

A stricken plane has been dug out of soft ground after veering of the runway at Stornoway airport.

 

The incident put the main airstrip out of action resulting in cancelled and delayed flights since Friday.

 

There were also disruptions to island postal deliveries after a Royal Mail chartered flight was held up.

 

Many booked passengers were transferred onto the ferry.

 

It is hoped flight operations will start getting back to normal tomorrow.

 

A airport spokesperson told Hebrides News: “The aircraft has been removed from the end of the runway and normal scheduled flights should resume from 7am on Monday morning."

 

Strong gusts are suspected to have apparently blown the Loganair Saab 340 plane off the tarmac.

 

The Glasgow-bound aircraft was racing down the runway at high speed, just seconds away from being airborne.

 

 

 

The plane remained bogged in the rough terrain after 29 people made an emergency evacuation on Friday morning.

 

Four people were injured in the incident which resulted in the airport being closed to travellers and aircraft for many hours.

 

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch confirmed it “deployed a team to Stornoway to investigate an incident to an airliner.”

 

Police guarded the scene and passengers’ luggage remained in the plane’s hold.

 

Since then, the main runway was out of bounds. A secondary, shorter airstrip was being used to allow flights to land.  However, under air traffic rules, there is a daylight hours only restriction meaning it cannot be used after 4.15pm or so.

 

As a result, the evening flights in and out of the airfield was cancelled for days.

 

On Friday, one angry passenger made his feelings known to airline staff amid confusion over alternative travel arrangements.

 

A crowd of disrupted travellers were told taking a bumpy ferry voyage was “the only option” with all scheduled planes fully booked the following day.

 

Then, at the very last minute, the majority of passengers for the afternoon flight to Glasgow had their tickets cancelled due to a weight limit on the smaller runway.

 

They were ushered out of the departure lounge and rushed onto a coach to catch a waiting ferry from Stornoway to Ullapool.

 

There were reports of disrupted air passengers being annoyed when they found they could not use Loganair-issued food vouchers in the ferry cafeteria.

 

Weekend flights were delayed and the mail freight plane was well behind schedule. After a late departure from Inverness, it flew to Benbecula first on Saturday.

 

Travellers were warned of disruptions and asked to confirm flights with their airline.

A Loganair statement said: “Passengers with bookings for flights to and from Stornoway should continue to check in as normal.“

 

The statement said there was “some continued disruption” on Sunday but it was hoped “that all flights will return to normal on Monday 5th January.”