Plane from RI skids in S'pore

Plane from RI skids in S'pore

SINGAPORE (AP): A Fokker-28 plane chartered by a Swedish engineering company to evacuate its employees and other foreigners from riot-torn Indonesia landed in the middle of the rain-slick runway at Seletar Airport on yesterday and broke its left wing as it swerved off the tarmac.

Three people were hospitalized among the 79 aboard the twin- engine Manunggal Air plane when it landed in heavy rain at 1:15 p.m. on Seletar's one runway.

"I could feel that the pilot was breaking several times, like pumping the brakes, but it was very slippery ...," said Charlie Hahne, the Swedish regional manager for Alfa Laval in Jakarta.

Hahne's wife was treated for neck pains. A young Western woman with her arm in a sling was put into an ambulance. Fellow passengers said she hurt it pushing on an emergency door, but the Civil Aviation Authority said her arm and leg had been injured previously. A third woman, identified only as an elderly Malaysian, was treated for shock and released from hospital.