A regional Garuda Indonesia flight missed a runway exit after landing got stuck on the taxiway and had to be pushed by manually by technicians and airport employees which can be seen in a viral photo.
The image already circulates in social media for the last 24 hours and shows roughly 20 people pushing the airliner back on track, allegedly because the airport didn’t have pushback equipment available.
After widespread speculation about the cause of this incident made the rounds a spokesman for Garuda Indonesia said that the plane didn’t have a technical fault but that the pilots took a wrong turn to exit the runway post landing and that the aircraft got stuck at that position.
An Indonesian travel site detiktravel featured the incident already (access here in local Bahasa language).
The following is ac excerpt via Google Translate:
Garuda Indonesia’s senior manager for Public Relations Ikhsan Rosan confirmed the authenticity of the photo, but denied that the jet had to be manually pushed back because it had broken down.
“The incident occurred today at Tambolaka Airport [in Southwest Sumba Regency, East Nusa Tenggara],” Mr. Ikhsan said.
“After the plane landed, it should have turned left towards the apron. However, the plane missed the left turn slightly.”
Mr. Ikhsan added that the airport was ill-equipped which prevented to push the plane back with the aid of machines.
“There was no push back vehicle available requiring the plane to be pushed by technicians and employees at the airport,” he said.
Meanwhile some hilarious pictures and meme’s made the rounds on the internet but above picture which is the clearest shot I found has been take by Twitter user @ngabdul (see here).
Conclusion
It looks pretty funny but that’s certainly not an easy task to move the plane around by ones own two hands (times 20). Strange that the airport couldn’t help out here, I wonder how the plane usually parks without a push back truck. Probably a remote stand with plenty of space to each side so it can roam freely.
