Ramp Landings - Coming soon to a Terminal Near You (Kerean Air Taxiway Landing)
.....As the next Logical Development
.
Pilot mistakenly lands 737 on taxiway
* From correspondents in Tokyo
* January 06, 2007
A KOREAN Air jet with 133 people on board mistakenly landed on a narrow taxiway instead of its designated runway at a provincial airport in Japan today.
There were no aircraft on the 30m-wide taxiway, half the width of Akita airport's runway, and the Boeing 737-900 plane landed safely.
The plane flew from Incheon in South Korea to Akita, some 450km north of Tokyo, officials said.
A return flight, which had been scheduled to take off one hour later was cancelled because of an inquiry into the mistaken landing.
"We feel relieved that there was no injury among the passengers or damage caused to the fuselage," said Hidehiro Tokuyama, manager of Korean Air in Akita.
"We apologise for causing trouble to passengers on the return flight."
The taxiway stretches 2500m and runs parallel to the runway.
It was raining lightly with a fair visibility at about 10 kilometers (six miles) at the time of the incident, officials said.