COURTESY OF JAMES KANESHIRO / MAUI TOW & TRANSPORT A fuel truck rolled into a ditch near a major runway at Kahului Airport yesterday.

5 Maui-bound flights
diverted after accident
near runway

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By Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.com

WAILUKU >> Several flights to Maui from the mainland were diverted to other islands yesterday after a fuel truck rolled off a fueling pad and into a ditch near a major runway at Kahului Airport.

"This is certainly a rarity at any airport," said Tweet Coleman, the Federal Aviation Administration's Pacific representative.

Coleman said at no time was any aircraft in danger.

The runway, about 7,000 feet long, is used by flights from the mainland and was closed from about a little after noon to 2 p.m. yesterday, authorities said.

Coleman said the other runway, which remained opened to interisland flights, is 4,990 feet long.

A United Airlines flight was diverted to Kailua-Kona, and four flights flew instead to Honolulu, including passengers on Hawaiian Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines and American Trans Air.

The flights were from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Phoenix.

The truck driver failed to put stoppers under the wheels, and the vehicle rolled backward into the ditch a couple of minutes after noon, state Transportation Director Rodney Haraga said.

The fuel from the truck, which has a carrying capacity of 10,000 gallons, had to be transferred to another truck, and the truck in the ditch was pulled out with the help of two tow trucks, authorities said.

Once the runway was reopened about 2 p.m., the diverted flights flew into Kahului.

Haraga said he was still trying to sort out the cost of diverting the flights.

"At this time, I don't know what the financial impact would be or if there is one," he said.

The truck that caused the problem is owned by Century Aviation. Company officials were unavailable for comment.