YANGON, Myanmar – A domestic Myanma Airways flight had a minor landing mishap Monday, one of two on the same day in Asia involving the same model of Chinese-made twin turboprop aircraft. There were no deaths in either accident.
The accident, the third since late December, comes as Myanmar is experiencing a boom in tourism after instituting democratic reforms that caused western nations to lift most longstanding sanctions that had been applied against the previous repressive military regime.
Myanmar state television showed the scene of the bad landing in Kawthaung in southeastern Myanmar. The Facebook page of the national police said the aircraft carrying four crew members and 60 passengers swerved off one side of the runway on landing Monday on a flight from Mawlamyine that had originated from Yangon, the country’s biggest city.
State-owned Myanmar Airways skidded off the runway on landing at the Kawthaung Airport in southern Myanmar on Monday due to a hydraulic system failure. No injuries were reported.
The Chinese-made MA60 plane, carrying 60 passengers and 4 flight crew, skidded about 200 feet west of the runway and came to rest in some bushes. Both propellers on the plane’s wings have been damaged but no one was injured.
“[The pilot] took caution in landing the airplane after seeing the hydraulic system failure signal. After the plane’s wheel touched the runway, the plane skidded off about 200 feet from the runway’s edge,” said Than Htun, managing director of Myanmar Airways.
The airplane operates daily domestic flights from Yangon to Mawlamyaing and Kawthaung.
“After the plane took off it returned back to Yangon, which they said was due to mechanical errors. Nothing happened on the way from Yangon to Mawlamyaing. It only happened when we arrived in Kawthaung. The passengers were in chaos and a baby fell under the seat,” said a passenger.
A similar event occurred on May 16 in which the MA60 plane with registration XY-AIQ on Heho-Monghsat flight overran the runaway on landing at Monghsat airport because of a brake problem, causing two serious injuries and substantial damage to the aircraft.
According to a press release from the Department of Civil Aviation, there have been 33 accidents in 2010, 46 accidents in 2011 and 57 accidents in 2012 from Myanmar airlines making it one of the most accident prone countries in Asia. The department’s Deputy Director, Win Swe Tun said the rise in airplane accidents is caused by an increase in airplanes and flight hours.
Myanmar Airways operates flights to 26 domestic destinations using 12 aircrafts: two Fokker F 28s, two ATR-72s, one ATR-42, three MA 60s, two Beech 1900D and two Embraer 190s.
The state-owned company has announced it is stopping operations on its Chinese-made MA60 aircraft on June 11 after repeated brake failures, according to Than Tun, the airline’s managing director. Three MA60 planes, which the sole national flag carrier bought from China on credit in 2011, have just entered in service and have met with numerous problems, according to the official.
ေကာ့ေသာင္းေလဆိပ္တြင္ေျပးလမ္းေခ်ာ္ သည့္ျဖစ္စဥ္ မွတ္တမ္းဓါတ္ပံုမ်ား
The report said the state-owned airline’s plane came to a stop in bushes about 200 feet to the west of the runway, with smoke coming from the left side propeller housing. It said the propellers on both wings were damaged. It said there were no injuries. Civil Aviation Department Assistant Director Nwe Ni Win Kyaw confirmed the accident but said she could not yet provide further details.
democracy for burma 