Vancouver airport runway to be closed for 'a few days' after cargo plane overruns landing
No injuries reported after plane came off runway; passengers asked to check flight status
A runway at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) will be closed for a few days after an Amazon Prime plane overran a landing early Tuesday morning, according to officials.
YVR said in a statement that the CargoJet flight, operating a PrimeAir aircraft, overran the eastern boundary of YVR's north runway at around 1:45 a.m. PT on Tuesday.
It said the crew of three safely got out of the plane, and no injuries were reported. YVR fire and rescue crews were called on as the flight came in.
YVR airport CEO Tamara Vrooman said in a Tuesday evening news conference that the north runway would likely remain closed for a few days, as the plane had wedged itself into the muddy ground at the end of the runway.
"We will need to build, essentially, a road that will allow us to bring in the equipment that will allow us to extract the plane from its current location," she told reporters.
"What that will look like, exactly what it will entail, will require us to do some investigation on the site, but we will be on-site as soon as [the Transportation Safety Board] gives us the all clear."
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said on Tuesday morning that it is deploying a team of investigators to gather information and assess the incident.
Vrooman said that the airport was rerouting all its flights to the south runway, and that around five per cent of flights on Tuesday were delayed as a result of the plane overrunning the runway.
"We are requesting that passengers do check with their airlines to check for any delays, but we don't foresee any in the coming hours," she said around 4:30 p.m. PT on Tuesday.
Vrooman said that there was no risk at any point of the plane breaching the runway's "secure" perimeter, which separates it from the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet shopping mall and its parking lot.
She said cargo aboard the plane would be removed Tuesday.
Carrying 10,000 kg of fuel
Air traffic control audio shows the Boeing 767 cargo jet reported a "flight control problem" involving a mechanism on its wings used to slow the aircraft just before it skidded off the runway at high speed.
Conversations between the pilots on the Amazon Prime Air jet and air traffic control reveal that the plane was experiencing a problem with its "leading edge slats" and was carrying about 10,000 kilograms of fuel.
In other recordings, the tower tells awaiting emergency responders that the jet was "coming in fast."
The global flight tracking database says the plane operated by Cargojet Airways left Hamilton, Ont., just after midnight Eastern time.
The audio recordings of air traffic control in Vancouver show the crew reported problems with the plane's control systems about 20 minutes before landing, with one crew member requesting time to run a checklist to try to resolve the issue.
An air traffic controller said they wanted to keep the plane "close to the airport," while the crew tried to find a solution, but control also asked if emergency responders should be ready.
"Yeah, we can bring out the fire trucks just for precaution," a crew member told air traffic control.
The crew also confirmed to air traffic control that it had no dangerous cargo on board other than the fuel.
According to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Beginner's Guide to Aeronautics, slats and flaps on an aircraft's wings are deployed to both slow a plane for landing as well as generate lift.
With files from Michelle Gomez, Akshay Kulkarni and The Canadian Press