Flight delays continued to pile up Thursday, a day after the San Diego International Airport was forced to temporarily cease operations for several hours because a private airplane’s nose gear collapsed on the runway.
Even with the airport resuming operations by 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, flight delays continued to mount Thursday morning and afternoon, reaching 365 by 3 p.m., according to FlightAware, a technology firm that tracks flights in real time. A little less than half of those delays were related to flights arriving in San Diego. FlightAware also reported 22 flight cancellations.
Airport spokesperson Jonathan Heller said that once the closure went into effect, all inbound flights Wednesday night were diverted to other airports, including Los Angeles and Ontario. Some airlines provided bus service to get their passengers to San Diego, he added.
The shutdown was caused by an aircraft that had been attempting to take off and reported difficulty with the landing gear, Heller said. The plane subsequently came to a stop without any injuries to those on board but remained disabled on the runway, causing the airport’s only runway to be temporarily closed.
The runway reopened at 9:23 p.m., but by that point many flights had been canceled, Heller said.
An Alaska Airlines spokesperson noted that on top of the delays caused by the nighttime runway closure, there was a second “ground stop” — albeit a brief one — issued earlier in the day on Thursday “due to significant congestion and poor weather.” The stoppage lasted about an hour, with operations resuming at 12:14 p.m., according to the airport.
“Our teams are working closely with SAN (the San Diego airport) to restore normal operations as quickly and safely as possible,” the Alaska spokesperson said Thursday. “We sincerely apologize to our guests for the inconvenience caused by these diversions.”
Alaska was reported to have had 25 delayed flights and seven cancellations.
Southwest, which is San Diego’s biggest airline, had more than 150 flight delays, although it’s unclear how many of those were related to departures. The airline had no canceled flights.
“We’ve added flights and repositioned several aircraft today in support of the diligent work by our team in San Diego to help our additional customers flying today after Wednesday’s evening airport closure,” a Southwest spokesperson said. “A low cloud ceiling has, at times today, added air traffic control delay time for some arriving and departing aircraft. We’re focused on safety and operating as much of our schedule as the airfield and airspace conditions will allow.”
Heller urged passengers to check the status of their flights before coming to the airport.
The airport was brought to a grinding halt after a Cessna 750 Citation X — once the fastest mid-size business jet in the world — experienced what the FAA described as a front gear failure. What occurred to the plane, which was photographed Wednesday evening with its nose laying down on the runway, is relatively unusual, according to Max Trescott, a pilot and the host of Aviation News Talk podcast.
“It’s almost certainly maintenance related or metal fatigue … and I’d probably say metal fatigue first,” Trescott said. “In general, if you take a piece of metal and you subject it to enough stress over time, it’ll eventually fail.”
Trescott said issues such as the one seen at the San Diego airport generally occur during landing or takeoff, but he noted that it is rarer for it to occur during the latter because the stress on the plane’s components is relatively lower. Regardless, the incident occurring at the largest single-runway airport in the country means massive delays for aircraft and travelers throughout the region, he said.
Signature Aviation, which handles private flights out of the airport, did not respond to inquiries seeking comment.