A Finnair Airbus A350 suffered a runway excursion at Helsinki International Airport while lining up at the edge of runway 15.
The Airbus A350-900, with registration OH-LWA, was scheduled to depart Helsinki as flight AY1963 to Dubai International Airport when it skidded off the edge of the runway. The aircraft’s nose gear ended up to the left of the strip.
The crew members said they could not turn onto the runway as the runway was reportedly very slippery. However, the controlled replied that the runway’s conditions were 4/4/4/4, and the runway’s condition was checked just before the incident.
Finnair Airbus A350-900 (O-LWA, built 201) skidded off the edge of runway 15 at Helsinki-Intl (EFHK) whilst lining-up for departure to flight #AY1963 to Dubai. The acft was towed back onto the centreline 40 min later.https://t.co/LSGhhBqwelhttps://t.co/BJL8Pssqpe pic.twitter.com/4ixdaeJw7P
— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) December 12, 2021
The aircraft was then towed back onto the centreline 40 min later. It was towed to the apron for precautionary inspections. The aircraft finally took off to Dubai nearly five hours behind schedule.
The Airbus A350-900 involved in the incident was delivered to the airline back in October 2015 and is currently 6.2 years old.