Images shot during the night and published Thursday by the media and on social networks show the device immobilized in land overgrown with grass, in the presence of rescuers working in particular around an injured person. Smoke and flames are also visible near the aircraft.
“We inform you of the reopening of the Blaise Diagne international airport (AIBD). Airport operations have resumed normally,” said in a press release the manager LAS, made up of a trio including the Turkish group Limak, the AIBD ( public) and Summa, another Turkish company, after the incident which occurred on Thursday around 1:00 a.m.
The information was confirmed to AFP by a manager from the LAS communications department.
Eleven people were injured, four of them seriously, in this incident which led to the closure of Diass airport, LAS announced a few hours earlier.
The plane, a Boeing 737/300, chartered from a private company, Transair and bound for Bamako, “exited the runway this Thursday, May 9, 2024 around 1:00 a.m.,” he said.
The incident left “four seriously injured” among the 11, out of a total of 78 passengers, said the manager who announced the closure of the airport “while waiting for the planned arrangements to be made”.
An Air France Boeing forced to land after a “hot smell felt in the cabin”
Six other passengers were admitted for observation in the airport’s medical services, according to the same Source, without further details.
In addition to the passengers, the plane had on board “two pilots and four members of the cabin crew”, affirmed the Ministry of Transport in a separate press release which speaks of 79 passengers and ten injured including a pilot in his text.
“The emergency plan was triggered by the airport authorities as soon as the information was communicated to them,” LAS added.
– Investigation open –
The manager further indicated that “the exact circumstances of the incident remain to be determined, but an investigation is already underway to establish the causes of the runway excursion.”
“Aviation specialists, as well as representatives of the airline concerned (Air Senegal), are on site to closely examine the flight data and interview the crew members,” he added.
“The Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) has opened an investigation to determine the causes of the accident,” said the Ministry of Air Transport in its press release.
This incident occurs while the company Air Senegal has, for several months, been the target of criticism about the quality of its service. Passengers regularly complain about delays experienced by domestic and international flights of the company controlled by the Senegalese state and which began operations in May 2018.
For its part, Boeing is also going through a difficult time after several incidents, including two this week, and the launch of an investigation targeting three of its commercial aircraft models by the American Civil Aviation Regulatory Agency (FAA). .
On Tuesday, an Air France 787-900 which was operating a Paris-Seattle flight was diverted to a Canadian airport following “the appearance of a hot smell felt in the cabin”.
Then, on Wednesday, a Boeing 767 freighter from the Fedex company landed on its fuselage at Istanbul airport, its front landing gear not having opened. The spectacular incident, however, did not cause any casualties.
Air Sénégal was created just after the bankruptcy in April 2016 of Sénégal Airlines, which itself replaced, in 2009, Air Sénégal International, owned by the Senegalese and Moroccan states.
The launch of this company is one of the three parts of a plan aimed at making Dakar a regional air “hub”, with the international airport, inaugurated in December 2017, and the rehabilitation of provincial airports.
Blaise Diagne airport, located about fifty kilometers from Dakar, which bears the name of the first African deputy elected to the French Parliament (1872-1934), replaces the Léopold-Sédar-Senghor international airport (AILSS), in the nearby suburbs. of the capital, converted into a military airport.
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BOEING
AIR FRANCE-KLM
FEDEX
