Nine people were injured last Friday, one of them seriously, following an emergency landing of an aircraft belonging to Spanish carrier Iberia at Lisbon airport. A spokesperson from ANA (Aeroportos de Portugal) declined to describe the injuries sustained by the passengers, who were taken to Santa Maria Hospital. But police confirmed that a 57-year-old Israeli woman, a 69-year-old Briton and a 24-year-old Spanish woman were among those injured. The injuries apparently occurred when the plane’s 288 passengers were evacuated from the aircraft using the emergency slides.
The emergency landing occurred at 3.15am. The plane, an airbus 340/600, was left stranded between the runway and the taxi-ing path until 6.45am, closing the airport for several hours. ANA said circumstances leading to the emergency landing were unknown, but they did confirm that smoke had penetrated the cabin area.
The only aircraft affected by the airport’s closure was that of Russian President, Vladimir Putin, who was kept waiting an hour-and-a-half before his plane could leave. Putin, whose plane was behind the grounded jet, was due to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum in Santiago, Chile, last weekend.
