Boeing 727 makes emergency landing on island

Source: China Daily | 02-02-2008 14:47

LIMA - A Boeing 727 airplane with 151 passengers on board made an emergency landing on Friday in a flooded region in the outskirts of Trinidad city, Bolivia with no death reported, according to news reaching here from La Paz, Bolivia.

Soldiers work in an rescue operation after a Lloyd Aereo  Boliviano Boeing 727 plane made an emergency landing in  an open field about 2 miles (3.3 km) from the airport in  the eastern city of Trinidad February 1, 2008. No one was injured when the Bolivian plane carrying 151 passengers  made an emergency landing in a clearing in an Amazon jungle on Friday in the latest setback for troubled airline Lloyd  Aereo Boliviano. [Agencies]

One of the pilots suffered a clavicle fracture and some passengers suffered minor bruises, it is reported.

The aircraft, flown by airliner Lloyd Aereo Boliviano, carried out the forced landing in an open field recently flooded by heavy rainfalls, some 3.3 kms away from Trinidad airport.

Bolivian senator Paolo Bravo, who also survived this emergency landing, told Erbol radio network that the motors turned off and that they were ordered to get in imminent "crash positions."

He added that the airplane started jolting and it landed on its belly.

Officials said all the airplane passengers and crew members abandoned the damaged plane on their own feet. Some of the passengers and crew members received medical attention in a nearby hospital.

The passengers said the airplane, from the Lloyd Aereo Boliviano firm, had extensive damages in the emergency landing, said the firm's operation chief Gustavo Viscarra.

The airplane was heading from La Paz city to northern Cobija city, but the bad weather forced the airplane to divert to Trinidad.

Lloyd Aereo Boliviano was privatized in 1996 and has been in the brink of bankruptcy in last few years. The airliner rents some planes to operate.