In a shocking accident at the world’s busiest cargo airport, two staff members were tragically killed when their patrol vehicle was struck by a plane which had left the runway in Hong Kong, pushing it into the sea.

Emirates flight EK9788 had just arrived from Dubai having received a green light to land, when the Boeing 747 crashed through perimeter fencing and authorities have confirmed no distress signal, nor any sort of request for assistance was issued from on board. 

The two ground staff were recovered from seven metres of water around 40 minutes after impact, but sadly a 30-year-old man was declared dead at the scene and the other, aged 41, died after he was taken to hospital.

More than 200 rescue personnel were dispatched to the crash site and later footage showed the fuselage partly submerged, having broken into two pieces. However, all four of the cargo plane’s crew survived the terrible incident. 

A spokesperson for Emirates confirmed that aircraft had sustained damage on landing, whilst an official from the Hong Kong Air Accident Investigation Authority (AAIA) said it was still trying to locate the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder – more usually referred to as the black boxes – from the sea.

Airport operations executive director Steven Yiu said the plane inexplicably turned away from the runway upon landing and crashed through the fencing running alongside. He stressed that the patrol car was, at the time, travelling on a road outside of the runway’s fencing and was “at a safe distance from the runway”. He explained: “Normally the plane is not supposed to turn towards the sea, and the airport patrol car definitely did not run out onto the runway.”

An investigation is under way. This marks the second ever deadly incident at the airport since it moved from Kai Tak to Chek Lap Kok in July 1998. In August 1999, a China Airlines passenger flight crash landed during a typhoon, killing three people.