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Wednesday July 12 9:49 AM ET

11 Hurt in Austria Crash Landing

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - An Airbus 310 chartered by a German company ran out of fuel and crash-landed at Vienna's Schwechat airport Wednesday, injuring 11 people, Austrian media reported.

The plane with 140 people on board was traveling from the Greek Island of Samos to Hanover, Germany, the Austria Press Agency reported.

It was not immediately clear when the fuel supply stopped, but state radio said the plane ``glided'' toward the rough landing with the engines turned off.

The flight was being run by the German Hapag-Lloyd company.

One wing and an entire engine of the plane were ripped off upon touchdown, APA reported. No other details were immediately available.

This site indicates that the pilots reported technical problems - possible engine failure - over Zagreb, Croatia. The plane ran out of fuel 20 km before landing on the meadow short of the runway. 27 people were injured in the accident, 10 of them were hospitalized.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), July 12, 2000

Answers

Alta Vista

UPDATE 1-Airbus lands in Vienna as engines fail

07/12/00

VIENNA, July 12 (Reuters) - 150 passengers and crew on board an Airbus A310/300 aircraft had a dramatic escape on Wednesday when the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing at Vienna international airport after both engines failed, officials said.

``The Airbus reported an emergency some 20 km (13 miles) before Vienna,'' said Austrian air traffic control official Heinz Sommerbauer, adding that the pilot had reported a shortage of fuel.

The plane glided towards the runway but touched down on the grass apron just before the tarmac and hit some equipment before coming to a halt to one side of the runway.

A Reuters cameraman said one wing and and a motor were badly damaged and passengers had used emergency slides to escape from the aircraft.

Hapag-Lloyd flight HF 3378 from Crete to Hanover was carrying tourists mainly from northern Germany. Eleven suffered slight injuries, airport officials said.

Sommerbauer said it was extremely rare for both engines to fail, adding: ``They must have had a guardian angel.''

A spokesman for German tour operator Hapag-Lloyd said eight passengers had already returned to the airport after hospital treatment and the rest would be released later on Wednesday.

The pilot decided to divert to Munich shortly after take-off from the Greek island when a problem prevented him from retracting the landing gear, the spokesman said. Both engines shut off a few kilometres from Vienna, forcing the emergency landing, said the spokesman for Hapag-Lloyd, which belongs to Europe's number one tour operator Preussag and specialises in charter flights to the Mediterranean.

``There is no obvious immediate explanation for why the fuel suddenly ran out. The pilot is very experienced,'' he said. Nor was there an explanation of why the pilot did not decide to put down at a closer airport.

An investigation had begun and Hapag-Lloyd would cooperate with the Austrian authorities, the company said.

The Hapag-Lloyd Airbus A310/300 is 10 years old.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), July 12, 2000.

Newsday

False Readings Blamed in Crash

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The crash-landing of an Airbus 310 that injured 26 people may have been caused by false fuel supply readings, investigators said Thursday.

The plane, carrying 142 passengers and eight crew, was traveling from western Crete to Hanover, Germany. Before seeking the go-ahead for an emergency landing Wednesday, the pilot reported that the plane's engines had stopped functioning.

Twenty-six people were injured, and 15 of them were hospitalized. Most of the injuries were slight, such as cuts and bruises.

Though the cause of the accident was still unclear, officials of Hapag-Lloyd, the German company that chartered the plane, said the pilot was unable to retract the landing gear after normal takeoff.

Such a malfunction leads to considerably increased fuel consumption. The force of landing ripped off an engine and badly damaged one wing. After touching down just short of the runway, passengers were evacuated by slipping down emergency slides.

Guenther Raicher, head of the Austrian Interior Ministry commission investigating the accident, said he doubted that the pilot was at fault for not trying to land somewhere else earlier, suggesting fuel readings available to him were inaccurate.

''Had the captain known that the fuel was used up, he would have landed earlier,'' Raicher told the Austria Press Agency.

Wolfgang Hubert, a press spokesman for Hapag-Lloyd, appeared to suggest the same thing in comments Wednesday. Hubert said that when flying in Hungarian airspace the pilot decided to land in Vienna, saying, ''that would have been easily possible according to the (fuel) gauge.''

He said the pilot and copilot would be extensively questioned about the accident.

AP-NY-07-13-00 0909EDT< 

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), July 13, 2000.