Plane with pilgrims skids off runway

Ainur R. Sophiaan, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya

A Saudi Arabian airliner carrying at least 449 Indonesian pilgrims from Mecca skidded off an East Java runway on Thursday.

All the Saudi Airlines passengers survived the minor accident at Juanda international airport in the provincial capital Surabaya, which occurred around 12:45 a.m. No injuries were reported.

Flights to and from the airport were suspended for at least four hours, with authorities forced to reroute all 27 planes scheduled to land there.

Bambang Oetomo, head of the Surabaya-based state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I, said the Boeing 747's right rear tire suddenly broke and peeled off as the plane landed, creating thick smoke.

"As a result, all the passengers were evacuated on runway 10, around two kilometers from the taxiway. Three hours later, the plane was lifted to the taxiway," he said.

"After four hours flights returned to normal."

Bambang said possible technical errors that might have contributed to the accident were being investigated by a flight safety team from the transportation ministry.

Traffic from the airport was rerouted to airports in Jakarta and Bali. A Merpati 831 plane traveling from Mataram in West Nusa Tenggara to Surabaya was forced to turn back to Mataram.

Saudi Airlines and the airport operators were assessing their financial losses from the incident, Bambang said.

"We are calculating the damages. It is clear that passengers and their families who picked them up also suffer losses," he said.