Air Caraïbes flight TX556 took off from Santo Domingo on it’s 8 1/3 hour flight to Paris Orly when something happened halfway over the Atlantic. The captain declared an emergency 5 hours into the flight and started descending. The reason for the emergency, the number of passengers and crew onboard is unknown at the moment. It appeared the aircraft was trying to land in the Azores Islands, a Portuguese territory.
25 minutes later the Airbus 330-323 landed safely on Lajes Field.
Air Caraïbes is a French airline and is the regional airline of the French Caribbean which comprises two overseas departments of France: Guadeloupe and Martinique.
3 hours prior to the scheduled landing in the French Capital the plane went from 34000 to 19000 feet and is reducing speed apparently attempting to land in Lajes Field Base Aérea das Lajes), officially designated Air Base No. 4 operated by the Portuguese Air Force on a Azores Island in the Atlantic Ocean, a territory of Portugal. Close by is the town of Praia da Vitória ( Beach of the Victory, is a municipality with a population of 21,035, the second largest administrative authority on the island of Terceira, it covers an area of 161.27 square kilometres (62.27 sq mi), that extends from the northern coast halfway into the interior.
Lajes provides support to 15,000 aircraft, including fighters from the US and 20 other allied nations each. The geographic position has made this airbase strategically important to both the United States and NATO’s war fighting capability. In addition, a small commercial aviation terminal handles scheduled and chartered flights from North America and Europe, especially mainland Portugal. It also supervises commercial air traffic with the other islands in the Azorean archipelago and trans-Atlantic refuelling and stopovers for commercial airlines, executive and corporate jets, air cargo haulers, small private aircraft, governmental flights, humanitarian missions, and other flights.
