AirAsia plane gets flat tire, causes other flights diverted

TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines — Bad Sunday for Air Asia? While its plane from Indonesia to Singapore mysteriously disappeared hours after taking off that day, one of its plane from Manila to Bohol had a flat tire right after landing the same day in this city, causing a momentary closure of the airport's operation here.

An airport worker, whose name was withheld, said all flights to and from this narrow city airport on Sunday were grounded to a halt. The cause: A flat tire of newly landed AirAsia plane from Manila.

The source said the incident (flat tire) caused the diversion of other flights from Manila, two of Philippine Airlines, and one each of Tiger/AirAsia and Cebu Pacific.

A Cebu Pacific flight was forced to land at the Mactan Airport in Cebu, while waiting passengers outbound of Tagbilaran were stranded, and could not take the sea travel because no vessels were allowed to sail as Bohol was placed under signal no. 2 due to tropical storm Seniang.

Tagbilaran airport authorities said that, whenever a plane experiences technical trouble, no other plane is allowed to land until the "defect" is fixed. The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines had imposed a one-plane landing at a time considering the narrow runway and limited space for "apron" of the airport here.

The source said AirAsia workers tried to fix the flat tire until past 4 p.m. Sunday, and the airport was reopened with flights resumed yesterday.

It was not the first time that a plane was stranded at the Tagbilaran airport. There were two others but for other causes in past months this year, a report said.  — Ric V. Obedencio (FREEMAN)