A XiamenAir plane carrying 157 passengers and eight crew members crash-landed at Manila International Airport in the Philippines after an aborted landing attempt. The plane reportedly had its engine broken off.
Flight MF8667 from Xiamen, China, reportedly circled Manila for about one hour before aborting landing. On its second landing attempt, the Boeing 737-800 skidded off the runway, causing one of the plane’s engines to detach from the wing, Chinese news agency CTGN reported.
“On August 16, 2018, Xiamen Airlines Flight MF8667 from Xiamen to Manila experienced a runway excursion while landing at Manila Airport at 23:55 Beijing time,” XiamenAir said in a statement posted on Chinese social media. “The crew immediately initiated emergency evacuation procedures. All 157 passengers and eight crew on board were evacuated safely with no injuries.”
A photo posted online appeared to show the plane sitting lopsided on the runway.
The crash landing came amid reports of recent flooding in Manila, with the Aviation Safety Network reporting that the incident occurred during heavy thunderstorms.
XiamenAir, formerly Xiamen Airlines, is a Chinese passenger airline based in Xiamen, Fujian Province. The airline operates scheduled passenger flights out of Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport and, to a lesser extent, Fuzhou Changle International Airport and Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport. The airline is owned by China Southern Airlines (55%), Xiamen Construction and Development Group (34%), and Fujian Investment & Development Group (11%). Xiamen Airlines holds a 99.23% stake in Hebei Airlines and a 60% stake in Jiangxi Airlines. By early 2016, the airline operated 230 domestic routes along with 60 international routes. Xiamen Air is also recognized as the operator of Fuzhou Changle International Airport’s first direct North American route, which commenced in February 2017, to New York-JFK.
XiamenAir has a fleet size of 164 planes and flies to 70 destinations. It is part of the SkyTeam alliance.
On October 2, 1990, Xiamen Airlines Flight 8301 from Xiamen to Guangzhou, a Boeing 737-200 jetliner, was hijacked shortly after takeoff and collided with two additional aircraft upon landing at Baiyun International Airport, killing 128 people.
