Airplane sinks, forcing passengers to swim in remote Pacific lagoon

The Air Niugini Boeing 737-800 was attempting to land at Weno airport in Micronesia but ended up in Chuuk lagoon. Pic/AFP

Passengers were forced to swim for their lives on Friday, when an airliner ditched into a lagoon after missing the runway on a remote Pacific island and began sinking.

The Air Niugini Boeing 737-800 was attempting to land at Weno airport in Micronesia but ended up half submerged in Chuuk lagoon after the accident on Friday morning. Within minutes, locals scrambled a flotilla of small boats to pluck the 35 passengers and 12 crew from the water. The airline said the plane, which was involved in a collision with another aircraft earlier this year, had "landed short of the runway".

Remarkably, it reported no serious injuries among those on the plane, which was making a scheduled stop on its way from the Micronesian capital Pohnpei to Port Moresby. The airline did not detail what caused the accident, but it said it had been informed that "the weather was very poor with heavy rain and reduced visibility at the time of incident".

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