Mansour Al-Shihri and Saeed Al-Bahiss

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

 

RIYADH/DAMMAM — About 120 passengers on board flight No. 225 for one of the airlines operating in the Kingdom were in a state of horror resulting in five injuries.



In the details as narrated by Khaled Al-Alkami, who was one of the passengers on board the flight, the plane took off from Jeddah at 3:40 p.m. Sunday. On arriving at the airport in Riyadh it could not land due to bad weather and the control tower told the captain to fly to King Fahd International Airport in Dammam because of security and safety measures.



Al-Alkami added, “The plane’s captain continued to fly over Riyadh for 45 minutes trying to land but the weather conditions prevented him from landing, especially since the winds caused the plane to be unstable and the passengers were in a state of horror.”



“After that the captain flew the plane to King Fahd International Airport. While flying, he requested via the internal loudspeakers the help of doctors if there was one on board the plane. Actually, there were two doctors, who provided first aid to five passengers who had respiratory problems due to low oxygen supply and were in state of great fear. We were shocked that the air host did not know how to use the oxygen masks, which had not been updated (modernized?). The captain informed the control tower at King Fahd International Airport that there were several injured persons and requested them to keep ambulances ready at the runway when the plane lands. But the passengers remained in the plane for 30 minutes to the extent that a woman went into a state of hysteric fear for her injured son.



Then the plane’s door opened and the passengers waited beside the plane on the ground for 20 minutes for the arrival of ambulances and buses to carry them to the airport terminal. After waiting for about an hour, it was announced that the plane was ready and that the weather was suitable for the plane to land in Riyadh’s King Khaled International Airport, but some of the passengers preferred to remain in Dammam while the rest returned to Riyadh,” Al-Alkami added.



Meanwhile, an official source in Nasair denied reports carried by several media that there were several cases of injuries among the passengers on the Nasair flight from Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz Airport heading to King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh.



The source said the plane encountered difficult weather conditions during its attempts to land at King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh due to a wave of dust and poor visibility on the runway. This forced the captain to fly the plane to King Fahd International Airport in Dammam. Then the plane returned to Riyadh taking off at about 9.00 PM after improvement of the weather conditions.



The official said scheduling of the flights was forging ahead as planned and none of the timings for any of the flights was changed. The fleet is still working with full services, he said.



It is noteworthy that the weather in Riyadh is witnessing fluctuations – from medium to heavy rain, while other parts are witnessing strong winds, dusty weather and poor visibility to less than 1 km.