Third Vietnam Airlines plane in week makes emergency landing

Feb 6, 2007, 5:10 GMT

Hanoi - A Vietnam Airlines plane made an emergency landing in Hanoi, the third technical mishap in less than a week involving the trouble-plagued state carrier, an official said Tuesday.

The Airbus A320 plane, bound for the Hue, had to return to Hanoi's Noi Bai Airport 15 minutes after its takeoff Monday due to vibration and strange noise, according to airline spokesman Nguyen Tan Chan.

No one was injured and the 147 passengers were transferred to another A320 aircraft, which safely landed in Hue later on Monday.

'We are investigating,' Chan said. 'This is the third time in less than a week a Vietnam Airlines plane has had to make an emergency landing.'

On Saturday, a domestic flight from Dien Bien Phu was cancelled after the ATR72 aircraft suffered an engine fire on the runway.

Also Saturday, a Seoul-bound flight from Hanoi was forced to return to the runway shortly after takeoff for unspecified technical reasons.

Vietnam Airlines also saw two other emergency landings in January, dashing hopes that the state carrier - which replaced its director January 1 after a series of scandals last year - would see its luck change in 2007.

Nguyen Sy Hung, Vietnam Airlines' new director, has said the problems may be caused by a too-heavy flight schedule for planes and says the airline is now examining its timetable.

Vietnam Airlines had a turbulent year in 2006, with a series of scandals, including allegations that it paid millions of dollars for the wrong kind of engines for its jets and that some of its staff have been involved in drug and cigarette smuggling operations.

In April last year one of its planes was nearly shot down over the Czech Republic because the pilots failed to answer calls from air traffic controllers.

At the time there were suggestions that the men had been asleep, although they were later cleared of that allegation by an official investigation.