Alaska Airlines jet with no passengers on board ends up in ditch at Anchorage airport

An Alaska Airlines 737-900ER accidentally ended up in a ditch at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport on Wednesday, according to the company.

“The aircraft inadvertently exited a taxiway on its way to a parking location. No passengers were on board the aircraft and there were no injuries,” wrote Tim Thompson, the company’s spokesman in Alaska.

According to Thompson, a maintenance team was moving the plane when the incident happened.

As of Thursday, Alaska Airlines was still figuring out how to get the plane out of the shallow ditch near a taxiway. There was some apparent damage to a wheel in the aircraft’s front landing gear. Once the plane is moved, Thompson wrote in an email, inspectors will have a better idea of any additional breakage.

“This is a minor incident,” said Shannon McCarthy, communications director for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, which is in charge of the airport. “This is a one off. It made no operational difference for us.”

The state transportation department has been part of the response to the incident, sending out vehicles of its own on Wednesday to check for any spilled fuel. On Thursday, the state was helping coordinate a plan for extracting the plane, McCarthy said, but it ultimately belongs to the airline.

In spite of a nasty freeze-thaw cycle across much of Southcentral Alaska in recent days, McCarthy said ice on the runway played no role in the mishap. Surface conditions at a taxiway near the airport’s testing area were normal prior to the incident, she said.