It is not every day that an aircraft breaks into tarmac and ends up getting stuck there. That is exactly what happened to an Airbus A350 operated by Cathay Pacific. The plane got stuck in the tarmac on a taxiway at Tel Aviv International Airport in Israel.
The A350-900 (B-LRX) operating flight CX676 to Hong Kong was scheduled to take off from Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV) in Tel Aviv at 2:30 PM on February 15, 2019, according to flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 data.
But things did not go according to plan. Apparently, the A350 got stuck in the tarmac after its left main landing gear broke into the asphalt during push-back, Airlive.net reported.
AIRLINE NEWS: Cathay A350 stuck in the taxiway at Tel Aviv – https://t.co/OZWUhYjcm6 pic.twitter.com/99aXK9VfOZ
— Airport Webcams (@AirportWebcams) February 16, 2019
Flight CX676 was scheduled to land at Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) at 6:15 AM on February 16, but due to the incident, the flight was delayed.
Playback of the A350’s path as displayed on FlightRadar24, shows the aircraft remained stuck on the taxiway after the push back procedure for about nine hours
It is not known how many passengers were onboard the aircraft for the flight to Hong Kong, however, Cathay Pacific’s A350s are configured to accommodate up to 280 passengers.
According to Cathay Pacific, the carrier operates a fleet of 133 aircraft, consisting of both Boeing and Airbus long-range wide-bodies.
The company primarily uses its Boeing 777s (-200, -300 and -300ER variants) for long-haul services. It also operates a fleet of Airbus A350XWBs (-900 and -1000) as well as A330-300 jets.
Hong Kong’s flagship carrier currently has about 22 A350-900s in its fleet having placed a firm order for another six of these jets from Airbus.
Cathay also has firm orders for 12 A350-1000s and 21 of the Boeing 777X (777-9) aircraft.
The A350-1000 is the newest jet to join the carrier’s fleet: in June 2018, Cathay Pacific became the second operator of the variant.
Two years earlier, in May 2017, the airline took delivery of its first A350-900 jet becoming the sixth operator of the aircraft.
