Cape Town Airport Reopens After Disabled Kenya Airways Jet Blocks Main Runway
Cape Town International Airport reopened its main runway on Tuesday evening after a Kenya Airways jet was left disabled on the strip, triggering hours of
Cape Town International Airport reopened its main runway on Tuesday evening after a Kenya Airways jet was left disabled on the strip, triggering hours of delays and diversions for domestic and international travellers. For much of the afternoon, the airport’s busiest runway was out of service. That was enough to throw the schedule into disarray.
The disruption started around 15:25 local time when Kenya Airways flight KQ784 suffered a tyre failure during landing, according to Airports Company South Africa, the airport operator. The aircraft came to a stop on the primary runway and could not move under its own power.
Flights diverted, departures held
With the runway blocked, all incoming flights were diverted to other airports. International departures were also suspended for several hours, while domestic departures continued to operate. Passengers bound for Cape Town faced delays across the board.
Airports Company South Africa said the plane was successfully recovered and safety inspections were completed before operations resumed. “Following the successful recovery of the aircraft and the completion of all required safety inspections, the runway has been reopened, and flight operations have resumed,” the company said on Tuesday evening.
Even after the reopening, the backlog was not expected to clear instantly. “Airlines will continue working to recover their schedules, and some flights may still experience delays as operations return to normal,” ACSA said, advising passengers to check the ACSA mobile app for the latest flight information.
Busy airport, brief shock
The outage hit one of South Africa’s key aviation hubs and Africa’s southern gateway at a bad time. Cape Town International is a major tourist airport and the country’s second-busiest, so any runway closure ripples quickly through arrivals and departures.
By 20:10, flight-tracking service Flightradar24 ranked Cape Town International as the most disrupted airport in the world, with 2% of flights cancelled, according to reporting from News24. The figure was expected to shift as airlines reworked schedules through the evening.
All passengers on the Kenya Airways aircraft disembarked safely. Engineers remained involved as the airport moved back toward normal operations, but the day’s last word was the same one that had followed the landing: delay.
