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AFP
Kathmandu
A Malaysian jet carrying 139 people that aborted its takeoff and skidded into mud forced Kathmandu airport to shut down for more than 12 hours causing flight chaos Friday after the latest near miss on the city's notoriously dangerous runway.
Nobody was hurt in the incident but hundreds of passengers had flights out of the Nepalese capital cancelled and all incoming flights were diverted after the Malindo Airlines Boeing 737 went off the runway late Thursday.
The jet was speeding down the Tribhuvan International Airport runway when the pilots detected a problem and aborted takeoff, airport spokesman Prem Nath Thakur said.
The jet skidded into grass and came to a halt in mud about 100 feet (30 metres) from the runway at the airport which had a major crash last month.
"All aboard are safe,"Thakur said, adding that the cause of the cockpit alert was not immediately known.
Nepal's only international airport reopened again just before midday Friday after the jet was"removed without any damage,"Thakur added.
More than 100 people were needed to move the jet, its tyres stuck in grass that had been turned into a soggy morass by recent rainfall.
Tow tractors pulled the jet out of the mud up ramps set up in front of the tyres. American traveller Sarah Ann Loreth, heading to Doha before returning to her home in Boston, spent hours on her delayed jet after the emergency.
