Jet Incident Causes Diversion of 22 Flights at South Airport

An incident involving a private jet yesterday resulted in considerable disruption to air traffic for an hour and a half at the Tenerife Sur airport, situated in the municipality of Granadilla de Abona. The aircraft was immobilised at the end of the runway after reportedly encountering issues with its landing gear, necessitating the deployment of emergency teams, including two fire brigade vehicles.

Consequently, the runway at the Reina Sofía airport was closed from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Air traffic controllers were compelled to rearrange the flow of aircraft unexpectedly. A total of 22 flights scheduled to land in Tenerife had their routes altered during this period, rerouted to the other airport on the island, Tenerife North Ciudad de La Laguna, as well as Gando in Gran Canaria and those in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. These flights originated from nine different countries, aside from Spain: England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary and Iceland.

Stationary on the runway

The private jet remained halted on the runway for an hour and a half following the unscheduled landing, with operations resuming only once it was successfully towed by the assistance vehicles from Tenerife South. Most of the disrupted flights arrived from the United Kingdom. Two flights were redirected from Gatwick airport in London and another two from Stansted, also in London, which were reassigned to Gando.

Flights from Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester (England) and Edinburgh (Scotland) were similarly redirected to the only airport in Gran Canaria. Additional flights from the United Kingdom were diverted to Tenerife North from Birmingham, Manchester, Norwich (England), and Dublin (Ireland). Another flight from Manchester was transferred to the César Manrique airport in Lanzarote. The other impacted flights originated from Seville (rerouted to Tenerife North), Santiago (Gando), Vienna (capital of Austria, to Gando), Amsterdam (capital of the Netherlands, diverted to Fuerteventura), Wroclaw (Poland, redirected to Gando), Budapest (capital of Hungary, to Gando), Milan (Italy, to Gando) and Keflavík (the main airport of Iceland, to Gando).

A malfunction in the landing gear caused the jet to be stationary and unable to move autonomously at the end of the Tenerife South runway, triggering the activation of established emergency protocols. According to sources, who could not specify the origin of the jet or the number of crew and passengers onboard since it was a private flight, there were no injuries reported during the eventful landing.

This incident, as the jet obstructed the sole runway at the Reina Sofía, compelled air traffic controllers in the Canary Islands to implement a rapid response plan to ensure safety during the diversion procedures for the 22 commercial flights affected. The diversions, in turn, caused delays to the affected aircraft, but normal air traffic operations resumed by 7:30 p.m.

One would have to look back to 27 August 2022 to find a comparable incident at Tenerife South. On that Saturday, landing and take-off operations at the Reina Sofía were suspended for three hours after a low-cost Ryanair flight blocked the runway due to an aborted take-off for safety reasons.

Two similar precedents

The earlier incident resulted in the diversion of 12 flights, five of which were redirected to Tenerife North, six to Gando in Gran Canaria, and one to Faro (Portugal). Operations were resumed following 7:00 p.m. The aircraft in question, corresponding to Ryanair flight B738, was immobilised when the crew opted to abort take-off for safety reasons, as the brakes had overheated and become faulty, according to air traffic controllers.

Another comparable incident occurred in 2017, eight years ago. A Jet2 aircraft from Manchester blocked the runway at Tenerife South airport when several of its landing gear wheels burst during landing, an occurrence in which no injuries were reported. This situation necessitated the runway closure for over five hours, leading to the diversion of more than twenty flights.