THE BAILDOG
23rd Nov 2003, 23:10
GDAY ALL
I JUST WANTED TO FINDOUT IF OTHER COMPANIES CLEARANCES INTO IRAQ HAVE BEEN SUSPENDED IN LIGHT OF YESTERDAYS TERRIBLE AND COWARDLY ATTACK ON THE AIRBUS IN BAGHDAD.
CHEERS
THE BAILDOG:ok:
newswatcher
24th Nov 2003, 15:48
BAGHDAD: A plane belonging to express courier DHL and bound for Bahrain made an emergency landing in Baghdad yesterday after being hit by a surface-to-air missile in the first successful strike on a plane of the seven-month-old Iraq insurgency. Nobody was injured in the attack, but it prompted Jordanian carrier Royal Wings, the only airline to offer civilian passenger flights into Baghdad, to suspend its service.
“A DHL plane took off from Baghdad airport this morning and was hit by a SAM-7 surface-to-air missile,” said a US military official. “It caught fire, turned around and came back to the airport where it safely landed.” The fire was extinguished. Basim Al Waziri, a resident of the southern Yusifiyeh area of the capital, said he saw the missile being fired on the aircraft and hitting its left wing, setting it ablaze.
Company spokesman Patricia Thomson said the Airbus A300 freighter had been flying from Baghdad to DHL’s Gulf hub in Bahrain when it was forced to return to Baghdad at around 9.30am.
It was the first time that a plane using Baghdad airport had been hit by a missile although eight previous firings had been reported