Ethiopian Airlines flight makes rare landing in middle of super Typhoon Saola

An Ethiopian Airlines flight became the object of curiosity on internet after it made a rare landing in Hong Kong during a super typhoon. The plane touched down at the Hong Kong airport on Friday evening (September 1) while strong winds swept the city, a Bloomberg report noted

Almost three hours after the last passenger plane descended into the city, the pilots of the Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner landed at 5:06 pm local time. The plane was tracked by 6,400 people worldwide, according to data available by FlightRadar24 - making it themost followed plane in the sky globally at the time.

According to the airport weather information system, the 787 landed on an extremely wet runwaywith significant windshear and moderate turbulence forecast on the landing phase of the flight with 32 knots of crosswind.

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Watch |Hong Kong shuts down as super Typhoon Saola approaches

The Ethiopian Airlines flight managed to stick the landing at a time when other competitors such as Cathay Pacific, and Hong Kong Airlines had cancelled their services.

Cathay Pacific, the city's flagship carrieron Friday announced all flights between 2 pm and 10 am on Saturday had been cancelled. Meanwhile, Hong Kong Airlines cancelled 21 and 11 flights on Friday and Saturday respectively.In total, over 460 flights have been cancelled on Friday alone.

What is Typhoon Saola?

Typhoon Saola, packing winds of more than 200 kph (125 mph) will make landfallalong the coast Guangdong coast on Friday night or Saturday morning, according to China's National Meteorological Centre.Hong Kong and neighbouring Macau lie in the centre of that coastline.

Hong Kong has five rankings for typhoons - 1, 3, 8, 9 and 10, and currently Signal 8 is in force. On Thursday, supermarkets across the city saw long queues with people stocking up ahead of the typhoon.

Local media reported that the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge which connects all three cities would be closed from Friday afternoon to ensure transport safety. Meanwhile, all schools in the city were closed on Friday, despite being the first day of term for many.

"We can see that the eye of the typhoon will pass very close to Hong Kong. I'm a bit concerned and hope it won't cause too many casualties," office worker Wai Yi was quoted as saying by Reuters.

(With inputs from agencies)

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