While landing, the plane overshot the tabletop runway of the airport and crashed. Photo: DIPR
A Myanmar aircraft sent to Mizoram to evacuate 92 Myanmarese soldiers overshot the runway of Lengpui Airport near the State’s capital Aizawl on January 23.
The aircraft broke into two and eight of its 13 crew members were injured. They were rushed to a hospital at Lengpui for treatment.
Lengpui is about 30 km from Aizawl and the airport’s 2,500-metre tabletop runway, one of three such in India, demands precision landing. The other tabletop runways are in Kozhikode and Mangalore.
“The aircraft crashed after overshooting the runway at about 10:20 a.m. It was supposed to pick up some 50-60 Myanmar soldiers who crossed over into [southern Mizoram’s] Lawngtlai district to escape the resistance forces in their country’s Chin State,” a police officer said from Aizawl, declining to be quoted.
Several batches of Myanmar soldiers have fled to Mizoram after extremist groups aligned with the exiled National Unity Government overran their camps. The first group of soldiers crossed into the Champhai district in November and December 2023, after which the action shifted to areas bordering the Lawngtlai district.
On each occasion, the Myanmar soldiers have surrendered before the security forces in Mizoram. The personnel of the paramilitary Assam Rifles guarding the India-Myanmar border were subsequently evacuated from the border area by choppers, initially to Moreh in Manipur and then to Lengpui.
A Myanmar Air Force aircraft evacuated 184 of the 276 Myanmar soldiers who crossed into Mizoram on January 17 after their camps were captured by armed pro-democracy ethnic groups. The aircraft had come from Mandalay and flew the soldiers out to Sittwe in two sorties.