Crossair Plane Makes Early Landing After Bags Fly

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Sun, 26 Mar 2000, 11:17am EST Crossair Plane Makes Early Landing After Passenger Bags Fly Out Open Door By Daniel Huegli

Crossair Plane Makes Early Landing After Bags Fly Out (Update1)

Basel, Switzerland, March 26 (Bloomberg) -- A Crossair AG charter flight bound for Basel, Switzerland made an early landing in Heraklion, Greece, after some passenger baggage flew out an open freight door on the plane, the company said.

The MD83 with 156 people on board landed in Heraklion on the Greek island of Crete at about 5 a.m. local time, about an hour after it took off from Cairo, said Crossair, a subsidiary of SAirGroup. Because the freight door was open, a freight net was hanging out of the plane and bags were lost, Crossair said.

``Obviously, it was a failing by the load crew in Cairo,'' said Matthias Schmid, a flight security officer at Crossair. ``The pilot assumed there was something wrong on his display and decided to take off after the load crew twice checked the freight door on the pilot's demand.''

The pilot couldn't establish the normal pressure level in the cabin because of the open door, forcing the plane to fly at a low altitude to Crete, the company said. The freight net also damaged the plane's surface, so the passengers boarded a different plane to Basel, it said.

Schmid said he didn't know how many bags were lost, and that the passengers were informed about the problem during the flight.

On Jan. 10, a Crossair Saab 340 Cityliner turbopropeller aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Zurich Airport bound for Dresden, Germany, killing all 10 people on board.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=Top%20World%20News&s1=blk&tp=ad_topright_topworld&T=markets_bfgcgi_content99.ht&s2=blk&bt=blk&s=c4a46944e8bda0aa36c47cf3c87f89d2

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 26, 2000


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