Airplane in Serbia lands safely after hitting runway lights

Clyde Hughes
·1 min read
3
UPI
An Air Serbia Airbus airplane lands on the new runway at the Nikola Tesla Airport in Belgrade, Serbia, on June 7, 2023. An Air Serbia plane crashed into runway lights at the airport on Sunday. File Photo by Andrej Cukic/EPA-EFE

Feb. 19 (UPI) -- An Air Serbia flight made an emergency landing in Belgrade on Sunday after it smashed into runway lights during takeoff and punctured a hole into the fuselage, officials said.

Greek carrier Marathon Airlines operated Flight JU324 on Sunday on a trip from the Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport to Dusseldorf, Germany, but it attempted to take off with a shorter runway distance. Officials said it was not known why the airplane started its takeoff with only 4,260 feet to accelerate. Airplanes typically take off using about 7,000 feet of runway.

The Aviation Herald said there were 106 people onboard the plane. Passengers said they could feel that "something broke" at takeoff because of the way the plane shook before it went into a holding pattern to burn off fuel and landing back in Belgrade about an hour later.

Officials said the aircraft ended up overrunning the runway. The incident caused no injuries but the airplane suffered "substantial damage" from the crash with the runway lights.