Posted on: Thursday, January 8, 2004

Jet diverted to Midway leaves

Advertiser Staff

The Continental Airlines jet that made an emergency landing Tuesday at Midway Atoll arrived at its Houston destination at 3:30 p.m. yesterday, 24 hours late.

Continental Flight 6, with 279 passengers and 15 crew members, was en route from Japan's Narita Airport to Houston's George Bush International Airport when pilots detected an oil leak.

The Boeing 777 landed at the old Navy airfield at Midway before dawn Tuesday. Mechanics arrived with spare parts just after sunset, and the jet was able to depart a day after landing.

Jet aircraft operations at Midway are restricted to darkness, when hundreds of thousands of seabirds that nest there have stopped flying. A jet engine could be destroyed if a bird were drawn into it.

The Continental passengers took tours of the atoll and were able to call their families using the island's phone system.