The alarms went off around 7:15 a.m., when, for unknown reasons, a Boeing 737 went off the runway about 40 meters and ended up stopping six or seven meters from the fence that marks the limit of the airport, and almost attached to the one that separates the enclosure from the internal road through which the ground support vehicles travel.
Firefighters, police, Civil Guard and paramedics have come to the scene, although, according to the island director of the General State Administration in Lanzarote, Carmelo García Déniz, the passengers were in good health and, beyond the scare, the incident has not left any consequences.
They all left on foot by the stairs and were transferred to the terminal in a bus, without the need for the ambulance to be required. According to many of the passengers, they were not aware of the incident until they left the plane, so there were no moments of panic during landing.
The Air Europa plane remained immobilized on the runway until 10:00 a.m., when it was finally removed by a special crane, reopening the runway at 10:15 a.m. The device, which has not suffered any damage, had its nose facing the outside of the airport and could not perform the maneuver to return to the runway, as it had to go backwards.
A total of thirteen flights were delayed, seven departure flights and another six arrival flights, according to the airport director, Dionisio Canomanuel.
Too high
Although the causes of what happened have not yet been revealed, the truth is that several eyewitnesses, airport workers, confirmed to La Voz that the plane entered the enclosure very high and when it was going to land it was already at the height of the fire station, when the usual thing is to start landing much earlier. In fact, they also pointed out that when that happens, the normal thing is to take off again to start landing again, although in this case it was not like that.
For the moment, an investigation commission has been convened that is trying to determine the causes of this event.