A PASSENGER PLANE skidded along a runway at Amsterdam’s busy airport today as its landing gear collapsed on hitting the ground during heavy winds, but no passengers were injured.
Video images of the Flybe plane carrying 59 passengers and crew from Edinburgh showed the plane struggling to stay on course as it came in to land at Schiphol airport, with the Netherlands buffeted by a strong winter storm.
The plane came to rest on the runway, but with its right wing tipped over to the side close to the grass. Airport officials said they were still investigating the cause of the incident.
“The plane’s landing gear collapsed as it came in to land,” Schiphol spokesman Jacco Bartelds told AFP.
Nobody was injured. They are evacuating passengers now and taking them to the airport building by bus.
Gale-force winds
The Netherlands took the brunt of gale-force winds this afternoon as the storm — which killed one woman in Britain — caused flight delays and cancellations at Schiphol, one of Europe’s largest hubs.
The Dutch weather service said winds at times were gusting up between 100-120 kilometres per hour.
Around 100 flights were cancelled at the airport and 60% of all flights have been delayed by the bad weather, another Schiphol spokeswoman Willemeike Koster said.
Elsewhere, the wind blew over trucks and trailers on the highways, and littered roadways with fallen branches.
Dutch meteorologists have sent out a “code orange” alert for most of the western part of The Netherlands until early tomorrow.
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