ANZ B772 at Rarotonga on Jun 25th 2015, blew over plane spotters

Last Update: July 3, 2015 / 17:57:51 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jun 25, 2015

Classification
Accident

Airline
ANZ Air New Zealand

Flight number
NZ-45

Departure
Rarotonga, Cook Islands

Destination
Auckland, New Zealand

Aircraft Registration
ZK-OKG

Aircraft Type
Boeing 777-200

ICAO Type Designator
B772

An ANZ Air New Zealand Boeing 777-200, registration ZK-OKG performing flight NZ-45 from Rarotonga (Cook Islands) to Auckland (New Zealand), had backtracked Roratonga's runway 26 for departure, turned around and accelerated the engines for takeoff on Jun 25th 2015 about 16:00L. Three people watching the Boeing 777 depart from the public road just outside the airport's perimeter fence, were blown away by the jet blast and received injuries. While the aircraft was climbing out of Rarotonga, an ambulance picked the three planespotters up and took them to a hospital. ZK-OKG arrived safely in Auckland on Jun 26th 2015 18:30L after about 4.5 hours flight time.

The planespotters were discharged from hospital a week later.

Local residents state, that the problem exists at the threshold runway 26 as the jet blast there just goes across the public road. There are warning signs at the fence, but not on the road. The sea wall side (threshold runway 08) is safer as the jet blast goes above the heads of the plane spotters there.

Air New Zealand stated that they don't have control over the public roads, they understand however there are warning signs at the fence.

Raroronga's Airport Authority repeated their warning to observe the red warning signs at the airport fence.

The distance from the runway threshold to the public road at the east side (runway 26) is about 135 meters, usually less distance while engines accelerate for takeoff, on the west side (threshold 08) the distance between road and threshold is 160 meters, in addition the road is below the runway level.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jun 25, 2015

Classification
Accident

Airline
ANZ Air New Zealand

Flight number
NZ-45

Departure
Rarotonga, Cook Islands

Destination
Auckland, New Zealand

Aircraft Registration
ZK-OKG

Aircraft Type
Boeing 777-200

ICAO Type Designator
B772

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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