Kathmandu:
Nepal’s only international airport has been
closed after a Kuala Lumpur-bound flight with 139 people on board
skidded off the runway while attempting to take off, officials said.
Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu was forced to halt all international flights after the incident involving Malindo Air jet on Thursday night, the Kathmandu Post reported.
There were 139 people, including four crew members, on board the
aircraft, Boeing 737-900, registration 9M-LNJ. No casualty had been
reported, the report said.
“The flight captain aborted the take-off at the final moment after he
saw an error at the monitor inside the cockpit,” the airport’s general
manager Raj Kumar Chettri said quoting the captain.
The aircraft apparently could not stop because of the take-off speed and load at the final moment and overran 50 metre south from the runway threshold and rested in a grassland at around 10.08 pm (local time), Chettri said.
