A plane was forced to land in Belgium when one of its engines exploded shortly after taking off from Maastricht in the Netherlands on Saturday afternoon, according to the Veiligheidsregio, the safety region responsible for the area.
Bits of metal from the plane fell around the Dutch village of Meersen, damaging several vehicles, but the aircraft was able to land in Liège, after being diverted to the Belgian town for safety reasons, a spokesman for the Veiligheidsregio reported.
Safety regions are public bodies in the Netherlands tasked with facilitating regional cooperation in dealing with crises, disasters and the like.
A fire service spokesperson said an elderly woman was slightly injured when debris fell on her.
The four-engine aircraft, a Boeing 747-400 cargo plane, had been bound for New York. There was no risk of it crashing after the destruction of one of its engines since planes of this type can fly on a single engine, a spokeswoman for the Dutch airport said.
The cause of the mishap was not immediately known.
Belgium’s air traffic control agency, Skeyes, guided the plane, which belonged to the British airline company Longtail Aviation, into Liege Airport, where it landed at about 5:11 PM Belgian time, according to the Flightradar site.
The Brussels Times
