The Zamboanga International Airport runway has been shut down for three hours after a Cebu Pacific Air plane with 180 passengers and crew on board stalled at the runway due to steering problem Monday morning.
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said the temporary closure from 5:30 a.m. to 8:35 a.m. also resulted in the delay of arrival and departure of six CEB domestic flights to and from Manila, Davao and Tawi-Tawi.
The CEB management apologized “for the inconvenience our aircraft concern in Zamboanga has caused and ground personnel are assisting all affected passengers.”
“Passengers are all safe and will be deplaned from the runway. We regret that the aircraft has caused temporary closure of the Zamboanga International Airport runway,” the CEB management stated in its advisory.
CAAP Operations Center reported that the CEB flight 5J 849 (Manila- Zamboanga) landed safely at the airport but encountered technical problem while taxiing to the parking bay.
CAAP officials said the aircraft stalled due to a nose wheel steering fault, as relayed by the aircraft's pilot to area manager IX Antonio Alfonso.
CEB corporate communications director Charo Logarta Lagamon said airline’s maintenance personnel already towed the Airbus A320 series plane to the ramp and operations at the ZIA are now back to normal.
Two months ago, commercial operations at the Dipolog Airport was shut down for nine hours after a Cebu Pacific aircraft also encountered technical problems upon landing at the airport runway.
The plane—Flight DG 6603, operated by CEB’s sister airline CebGo—from Cebu was left in the middle of the runway after experiencing technical problems upon landing around 12:15 p.m. It stalled at the runway and the 60 passengers were asked to deplane and walk for about a kilometer to the arrival area.
CEB officials said the plane pilots detected unusual vibrations from the nose landing gear of the aircraft during the landing rollout.
