Kenya flights resume after Singapore cargo plane incident

Kenyan authorities reopened the only runaway at the nation’s main airport after removing a Singapore Airlines Ltd. cargo plane that aborted a takeoff.

“The plane has been removed from the runway albeit an hour later than we expected,” Kenya’s Transport Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen said on Twitter. “Flights will resume shortly,” he said.

The Singapore Airlines-operated Boeing Co. 747 plane, which was en route to Amsterdam, stopped on the runway about 35 minutes after starting to taxi, data from Flightradar24.com showed. 

The aircraft “experienced a technical issue with one of its engines,” a spokesperson for the airline said. “The aircraft’s crew safely stopped the aircraft before take-off. Some of the aircraft’s tires, however, deflated as it came to a stop on the runway,” the spokesperson said. 

Singapore Airlines worked with the airport authorities to move the aircraft from the runway. The process of moving the plane required evacuating 100 tons of cargo and replacing damaged tires, Murkomen said.