A medical emergency which forced a SWISS flight from Tokyo to Zurich
to land in Astana, Kazakhstan had further consequences for the airline
when the Boeing 777 carrying 319 passengers was damaged when turning on
the taxiway.
In a statement, SWISS said while the landing was “uneventful”, the
taxiway at Astana was closed, “which meant that the crew had to turn the
aircraft 180 degrees on the runway”.
“The aircraft's nose wheel got caught in the grass and got stuck. As
is usual in such cases, the aircraft had to be towed back onto the
runway.”
As a result, the aircraft needed to be inspected for damage by SWISS
technical experts flown to Astana, along with Boeing and Swiss
authorities.
Rather than wait for the B777 to be cleared for flying, a SWISS task
force handling the emergency chose to operate an Austrian Airways B777
to fly the stranded passengers back to Zurich via Vienna.
“As the Kazakh capital is not part of SWISS's regular route network,
there are no established local processes. For this reason, ground
handling in Astana was delayed by around four hours,” SWISS said.
The flight to Vienna with a Boeing 777 left SWISS short of aircraft,
leading to the cancellation of a flight to/from Los Angeles, a delay on a
flight to Bangkok and postponement of a flight to Sao Paulo.
“Further delays or cancellations will depend on the return of the
Boeing 777 from Astana and its operational capability. SWISS is
continuing to focus all available resources on minimising the impact on
flight operations and thus on its passengers,” the airline’s statement
concluded.