Asiana plane skids off runway at Hiroshima, Japan

The plane skidded before coming to rest on grass beside the runway

Air safety authorities in Japan are investigating how a South Korean Asiana Airlines plane skidded off a runway on landing at Hiroshima airport.

The 74 passengers and seven crew members used emergency chutes to evacuate the Airbus 320 in the incident late on Tuesday.

Local media reported that at least 20 people had minor injuries.

Transport ministry officials said a plane wheel may have clipped a radio facility near the runway on landing.

The plane was flying to Hiroshima from South Korea’s Incheon airport, near Seoul.

One passenger told national broadcaster NHK that the plane had hit turbulence during the flight, and that there was a huge impact on landing.

The airport was closed for several hours.

In July 2013, Asiana Airlines flight 214 from Incheon crashed on landing at San Francisco airport after its tail clipped a sea wall.

Three people died in the crash – including one Chinese teenager who was run over by a firefighting vehicle in the chaos.

And two years prior to that, two Asiana pilots were killed when their China-bound cargo flight crashed into the sea off South Korea’s Jeju island.

BBC