MANILA, Philippines — The runway of Manila’s international airport reopened early Monday, hours after a Tokyo-bound aircraft caught fire at 8 p.m. of Sunday, March 29.
News5 quoted Civil Aviation Authority Spokesperson Eric Apolonio as saying in a radio interview that the airport’s runway was re-opened at 5 a.m. and normal operations have since resumed.
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This was after authorities have cleared debris of Lionair RPC5880 that caught fire as it was about to take off on a medical evacuation flight, killing eight people onboard.
The MIAA, in an advisory to reporters, has confirmed the accident, which it said happened at the end of the airport's Runway 24.
The runway closure affected a Korean Airlines flight that was diverted to Clark International Airport.
Investigation is ongoing. “We’re still trying to determine what [caused] the accident, it will take some time to complete it,” Apolinario was also quoted as saying.
"Immediately after the incident, the MIAA Fire and Rescue team were dispatched to the site to douse the flames with chemical foam," MIAA said in its advisory.
Aircraft that burned was ‘airworthy’
Captain Don Mendoza, CAAP Deputy Director General, in a late night briefing Sunday, said that the aircraft is deemed “airworthy.”
“Licenses of the pilots are current and it’s a Westwind aircraft. It’s a corporate jet performing a medevac from Manila to Haneda [Japan],” he said.
According to the Lionair website, its Westwind II can accommodate seven passengers in executive seats. It can also be configured as an air ambulance, with space for a patient, two or three members of a medical team, and one or two relatives.
Mendoza also confirmed that the aircraft was being used to transport medical supplies .
Lionair fleet may be grounded
In the same press conference, Mendoza said that they may order Lionair aircrafts grounded due to the incident.
He noted that Lionair was also the operator of the plane that crashed in Laguna, in September last year. All nine passengers and flight crew also perished from the incident.
“Right now the initial step that we are looking into at is grounding the whole fleet,” Mendoza said.
“We are looking into the records deeply of this unfortunate event that happened to Lionair,” he also said adding that the authorities will conduct a thorough investigation into the incident. — Kristine Joy Patag