Romanian Plane Makes Emergency Landing, 51 Safe
February 28, 2009
A Carpatair Saab 2000 plane with 51 people on board made an emergency landing in Romania on Saturday.
All 47 passengers and four crew on board were safe an official said.
The pilots were forced to make an emergency landing in Timisoara after circling the airport for two hours to use up fuel. Reports indicate that there was a problem with the front landing gear.
The Saab 2000 landed nose-down on a foam cushion spread on the runway to avoid fire.
The BBC reported that most of the 47 passengers on the plane, which had been flying from the Moldovan capital Chisinau to Timisoara, were Romanians or Moldovans.
Nine Italians, two Greeks and two Germans were also aboard, Romanian border police said.
Romanian accident investigators were sent to the scene.
