A Boeing 737/300 aircraft carrying 78 passengers skidded off the runway during takeoff from Senegal’s Blaise Diagne International Airport early Thursday morning, leaving 11 people injured.
The development led to the shutting down of the airport for almost 12 hours.
The aircraft, an Air Senegal flight chartered by TransAir, was en route Bamako, the capital of Mali, when the incident occurred around 1:00am (0100 GMT).
According to LAS, the management consortium that includes Turkish group Limak, the publicly owned airport operator AIBD, and Summa, another Turkish entity, four passengers were seriously injured while six others received medical attention at the airport.
“The jet came off the runway during its takeoff phase,” said LAS in an official statement. “Eleven people were injured, four of them seriously. Six other passengers were taken for medical check-ups inside the airport.”
The airport, located in Diass, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Dakar, reopened shortly after midday.
“We inform you that Blaise Diagne International Airport has reopened. Airport operations have resumed as normal,” LAS confirmed.
Images from the incident show a large hole in the left engine and the wing covered in firefighting foam. “The aircraft was immobilized away from the runway, and an emergency plan was triggered by airport authorities as soon as they were alerted,” the group stated. “All the airport emergency services have been mobilized for the evacuation of passengers and their care, as per the plan.”
An investigation has been launched to determine the cause of the incident. “The exact circumstances of the incident remain to be determined, but an investigation is already underway to establish the reasons why the aircraft left the runway,” LAS said. “Aviation specialists, along with representatives of the airline concerned, are on-site to examine the airline log data and interview crew members.”
The incident added to existing criticism of Air Senegal, with passengers frequently complaining about delays on both domestic and international flights. The state-owned airline began operations in May 2018, following the collapse of Senegal Airlines in April 2016. The airline itself was formed after the dissolution of Air Senegal International in 2009, a joint venture between Senegal and Morocco.
The reopening of Blaise Diagne International Airport in 2017 is part of a three-phase plan to transform Dakar into a regional air hub. The airport replaced the Leopold-Sedar-Senghor International Airport (AILSS) in the capital’s suburbs, now converted into a military facility.
Transair, founded in 2010 and based at Blaise Diagne International Airport, serves a dozen destinations across West Africa, including Sierra Leone’s Freetown, Nouakchott, Banjul, and Conakry. According to its website, the airline carries approximately 90,000 passengers annually.
Thursday’s accident came a day after a Boeing 767 FedEx cargo plane landed at Istanbul Airport without its front landing gear, which had failed to deploy. Fortunately, no injuries were reported in that incident.