Today some scary news emerged:
Russian airliner may face emergency landing
(AP) – 5 hours ago
MOSCOW — A Moscow airport is preparing for a possible emergency landing of an airliner with 279 people aboard, a spokesman for the airport said Saturday.
Oleg Pesko, chief of the Vnukovo Airport press center, said an airport worker in the Pacific coast city of Vladivostok reported finding pieces of aircraft tire on the runway after the Airbus A-330 took off on Saturday.
Pesko said it was not clear whether the pieces of tire belonged to the Airbus, and if so whether the plane's landing gear suffered serious damage.
"It is not known how serious (the situation) is," he said.
Pesko said the Vladivostok Avia airlines plane was scheduled to land at 2:50 p.m. (1050 GMT). "Our emergency services were brought to a state of readiness just in case," he said.
A spokeswoman for the airline in Vladivostok said she was not aware of potential problems with the flight. She said there were 267 passengers and 12 crew members aboard.
RIA news agency quoted emergency officials as saying it is not rare to find pieces of tires on the runway after a takeoff.
A while later, it made a safe non-emergency landing, must have been quite a relief for the 267 passengers and 12 crew:
Russian airliner lands safely after damage report
(AP) – 3 hours ago
MOSCOW — A Russian airliner with 279 people aboard landed safely Saturday in the Russian capital following reports of possible damage to its landing gear, an airport spokesman said.
Oleg Pesko, chief of the Vnukovo Airport press center, said the the Vladivostok Avia Airbus A-330 made a non-emergency landing at Vnukovo Airport shortly before 1100 GMT (7 a.m. EDT) with no injuries.
Airport workers in the Pacific coast city of Vladivostok earlier reported finding pieces of aircraft tire on the runway after the Airbus took off.
Pesko said that Vladivostok Avia would investigate whether it was the Airbus' tires that had been damaged.
"It's still uknown whether the problem was with this Airbus or not," he said. "The airline will find out after a special examination."
He said that the airport's emergency services were on alert during the landing.
A spokeswoman for the airline in Vladivostok said earlier she was not aware of potential problems with the flight. She said there were 267 passengers and 12 crew members aboard.
I guess the question remains whether some other airliners is flying around with damaged gear...
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