Flights delayed, diverted by defect

A Korean Air plane with more than 150 passengers on board experienced technical difficulties while attempting to take off at Phnom Penh International Airport yesterday, and caused other scheduled flights to be delayed as a result.

Cambodian civil aviation authority spokesperson Keo Sivorn said the plane, a Boeing 737-900 slated to fly from Phnom Penh to Seoul, experienced a brake defect at 12:30am yesterday. A technical team repaired the aircraft after the issue was detected, but towing the plane and clearing the runway for other flights took nearly three hours.

“The plane’s brakes were defective, and we worked step by step to remove the wheel and change the brakes,” he explained.

“We towed it to a parking space and are monitoring it.”

Sivorn said the incident caused three other flights set to depart from the airport to be delayed, and forced an aircraft headed for Phnom Penh to change course and land in Siem Reap instead.

He added that the flight’s passengers were loaded onto a different plane bound for South Korea later in the day.

“At 1:30pm on Sunday, the passengers arrived in Korea,” he said.

Chhay Bunna, the chief of immigration at the Phnom Penh airport, said none of the 154 passengers or eight crew members were injured as a result of the malfunction.

“Nobody was hurt, since the plane was just about to take off,” he said.