All 47 people on-board the Air Niugini flight survived after the plane crashed into the sea near the island of Weno in Micronesia.
ASKiNGRADiO.com | News | Micronesia, Papua New Guinea | September 28
A passenger plane has crashed into the sea after missing the runway of a tiny Pacific island – with everyone on-board surviving.
The Boeing 737-800 plane was attempting to land at Chuuk Airport on the remote island of Weno in Micronesia but ditched in a lagoon at about 9.30am local time (12.30am UK time).
Images posted online showed dozens of people on boats surrounding the wreckage as they attempted to rescue those on-board the Air Niugini plane.
All 36 passengers and 11 crew members escaped without any serious injuries, officials said.
Jimmy Emilio, General Manager of Chuuk Airport, said the plane landed about 150 yards short of the runway and the cause of the crash was unclear.
“We don’t really know what happened,” he said.
A spokesman for Papua New Guinea’s Accident Investigation Commission said investigators would fly to the scene as soon as possible to piece together what happened.
In 2013, all 101 passengers aboard a Lion Air flight that overshot the runway at Denpasar in Indonesia and landed in shallow water were similarly rescued by boats without casualties.