Hong Kong, cargo plane goes off the runway and into the sea: two dead
The cargo plane, for reasons still unknown, went off the runway while landing and ran over a vehicle, dragging it with it into the sea
Two people died at Hong Kong airport after, for reasons still unknown, an Emirates cargo plane operated by Turkey's Act Airlines went off the runway while landing, smashing through the fences, running over a vehicle and dragging it with it into the sea.
The two victims were on board the car. All four crew members of the aircraft, a Boeing 747-400, which was carrying nothing at the time of the accident, survived.
Steven Yiu, executive director of airport operations at the Hong Kong Airport Authority, explained that the plane was coming from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and that on landing it left the northern runway and broke through the fence before crashing into the sea' at around 3.50 a.m. local time. According to initial reconstructions, the accident occurred halfway down the runway, when - for no apparent reason - the aircraft swerved sharply to the left.
"At the time, a security car was patrolling the perimeter of the airport. The plane collided with the car, pushing it into the sea," he added at a press conference. Divers extracted the two victims who were on board the car about five metres from the shore. The victims were 30 and 41 years old. After the crash, the plane broke in two.
Hong Kong International Airport is one of the busiest cargo airports in the world and the incident is one of the most serious since the hub began operations in 1998.
