The flight was landing when it failed to stop before reaching the end of the 6,000-foot runway. The nose of the plane is lying in the shallow lagoon water just a few feet from the end of the runway.
“The aircraft is completely off the runway and is not blocking it,” said APA’s Guam-based manager Robert Walker Friday night. The “closest part of aircraft to the runway is probably 20 feet or so and that is the left wingtip.”
Airport officials in Majuro, the next stop on the APA flight’s schedule, confirmed that the cargo plane skidded off the runway in the capital island of the Federated States of Micronesia.
Japan has just approved a $30 million project to extend Pohnpei’s runway by an additional 800 feet. But work won’t get underway until later this year on that two-year project.
APA carries mail to and from islands in the FSM and the Marshall Islands, and also exports large volumes of yellowfin tuna to sashimi markets in Hawaii and Japan.
APA and Continental Micronesia service Pohnpei on a regular basis. Use of the single runway at Pohnpei may be halted until the plane is removed.
None of the crew were injured in the incident.
“There does not appear to be any serious damage to the aircraft,” Walker said.
