An Air Niugini Dash 8-200 was forced to divert while on a repositioning flight to Japan this week. The aircraft was on its way from Papua New Guinea to Canada when it suffered a technical malfunction, forcing it to touch down in east Russia.
There were no injuries reported among the two crew onboard.
The Air Nuigini Dash-8 departed Port Morseby, Papua New Guinea, last week and was in the middle of a long repositioning flight to the other side of the globe to Calgary, Canada. The aircraft was currently on a leg from Sapporo, Japan, to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia, on Sunday (20th December). During this flight suffered a technical malfunction, approximately 75 minutes into the flight, after departing at 12:04 PM local time.
At the time of the issue, the aircraft was 80 nautical miles northeast of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, a nearby city to its destination. The crew requested a diversion due to the technical errors and was cleared to touch down.
The aircraft was then repaired by a maintenance crew from Aurora, a far east Russian airline that also operates Dash 8s. The issue was found to be an oil leak through a propeller seal, according to information from AvHerald. The plane safely took to the skies once again at 08:15 on 22nd December and landed safely at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky at 12:11 PM local time.