Airplane Safe Despite Overshooting Runway

An Air Europa airplane was able to successfully land next to a beach on the Spanish holiday island of Lanzarote after overshooting a runway, officials say.

A spokeswoman for the airport in the city of Arracife said all 74 passengers and six crew members were safely evacuated following Friday’s incident on the island in the Canary Islands, The Guardian said.

“The aircraft came off the runway. No one was hurt,” the unidentified spokeswoman said.

An Air Europa spokeswoman blamed the incident on a wet runway and denied reports the airplane had completely landed off the runway.

The Times of London said a spokesman for Aena, the group that controls all Spanish airports, confirmed that the Lanzarote airport was closed as a mandatory precaution.

“The airport runway is currently closed while the plane is being removed and nothing is flying into or out of the airport at the moment,” the spokesman, whose identity was not reported, said.

“Planes that were already in the air en route to Lanzarote when it happened will have been diverted to neighboring airports. That is the normal protocol in these situations.”