(Posted 29th April 2023)
An aged Boeing B727 cargo aircraft, which was chartered to evacuate Southern Sudanese who had escaped the ongoing fighting in the Sudan, overshot the runway at Juba International Airport on landing and came to a standstill in the grass. The flight came from Paloich / South Sudan (HGI/HSFA), where the people had escaped to from across the border, with a full load of passengers on board. It could not be established if any ground installations at the end of the runway had been damaged or destroyed.
Reports from Juba also confirm that there were no serious injuries reported among the passengers and crew. Some information received said that the cargo aircraft, a B727F, registered in Tajikistan as EY-627, MSN 21247/1217 had been packed to the rafters with as many as 300 passengers, as per the tweet shown below:
No doubt will the South Sudan Civil Aviation investigate the incident and eventually also clarify the actual number of those on board and what permits were in place for a cargo aircraft to uplift people from an airfield inside South Sudan.
https://youtu.be/qNKT7ns7t5E
