Plane made an emergency landing in Medellin due to a failure in one of its wheels
The aircraft began to fail minutes after taking off.
A Latam company plane was forced to land at the José María Córdova Airport in Rionegro, near Medellín, Colombia. The aircraft began to fail minutes after taking off, due to a failure in the wheels of its nose gear.
The civil aeronautics informed through a statement that the Airbus A-320, which covered the Medellín-Cartagena route, that the plane had to land unexpectedly at this airport, due to the fact that moments after takeoff there was a failure in one of the front tires of the aircraft.
The statement explains that the plane's pilot "decided to fly over the Rionegro airport area to consume fuel and land safely."
In addition, they detailed that the landing was carried out in a controlled manner, with safety conditions for both the crew and the ground personnel.
The passengers were disembarked from the plane without major complications, only two people were treated by the health personnel, because they were upset by the emotional impact they suffered during the incident.
The aeronautical firefighters, the emergency services and airport maintenance personnel, were the ones who attended the emergency. And from that moment (2:20 p.m.) their regular activities were suspended and have not been resumed to date.
For its part, the José María Córdova Airport wrote on Twitter that normal flights have already opened, because the affected aircraft was towed at dawn this Thursday and the respective inspection was already carried out to guarantee that everything works correctly.
The Aerocivil organization has not confirmed how many people were on board, but in some videos recorded by the passengers the plane is practically full.
The videos published on social networks show the moment the aircraft made an emergency landing and it can be seen how the damaged wheel caught fire when it reached the runway.
Another video, taken by one of the passengers, shows how most of the crew members were crying and praying in fear of what was happening, while the cabin workers asked them to remain calm and in their seats.