Bahamas News

An emergency landing of a Western Air plane caused passengers to be delayed at Lynden Pindling International Airport Saturday evening, according to Director of Operations at Western Air Captain Wolf Seifert.

Captain Seifert said one of the company’s aircraft, a Fairchild Metro airliner, left Mangrove Cay, Andros, en route to New Providence shortly after 4pm.

He said as the aircraft approached New Providence, the plane’s landing gear began to experience difficulties.

“Upon reaching the vicinity of Nassau in preparation for landing, the captains selected to extend the landing gear on the aircraft, but they discovered that one of the gears didn’t extend,” Captain Seifert explained. “At that point they followed all the procedures listed in the company’s manuals, contacted the air traffic controllers and declared an emergency.”

He said the captains continued to attempt to extend the landing gear, but to no avail.

At this point, Captain Seifert said the captains decided to carry out a “precautionary landing”.

“They elected to do a precautionary landing with two emergency landing gears, which they did accomplish and which was the safest maneuver in that respect,” he said. “After doing a successful landing, they evacuated immediately and prevented any injuries.”

There were 12 passengers on the 19-seat aircraft.

According to Captain Seifert, there was a slight delay of a half hour on the LPIA main runway.

“The delay was kept to a minimum,” he said. “The main runway was closed for about half an hour and that was to facilitate the emergency vehicles to cross the runway and come to where the aircraft came to a rest.”

He said the aircraft, which received no major damage, was removed from the runway around 7pm.

“No one was really hurt or anything,” Captain Seifert said. “Procedures were followed and everything came out fine.”

Source: Bahama Journal