Investigations are continuing into a Boeing 737-200 freighter that skidded off a runway in Kuching, East Malaysia but the Malaysian department of civil aviation (DCA) has disclosed that the aircraft landed short of the runway.
At 05:52 on 13 January the aircraft landed at Kuching airport but it landed aroud 20-30m (66-100ft) short of the runway threshold, says a DCA spokesman in Kuching, adding that there are skid marks and broken runway lights that show the aircraft landed short (pictured below).
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It “didn’t make it onto the centre of the runway” and instead skidded along the right side of the runway and along the shoulder before skidding off and resting about one kilometre from the runway threshold, says the spokesman.
Weather conditions at the time of the accident “were very foggy”, he says.
The aircraft’s main under-carriage was damaged as a result of the impact as were the wings, says spokesman, adding that impact also caused one of the aircraft’s engines to come off and the second engine later came off when the 737-200 was being towed away.
Engine parts and other debris from the 737-200 was found along and near the edge of the runway, says the DCA, which confirms the airport was closed following the accident but re-opened at 12:00.
There were no fatalities and the aircraft was transporting mail from West Malaysia to Kuching, which is the main city in East Malaysia’s Sarawak province.
Malaysian firm Gading Sari Aviation Services had been wet-leasing the aircraft from Indonesian cargo-carrier RPX Airlines.
According to Flight's ACAS fleet database the 737-200, registration PK-RPX, was built in 1970.
Officials at RPX Airlines in Jakarta were unavailable for comment.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
