SriLankan flight makes emergency landing:

SriLankan flight makes emergency landing

Staff Reporter

Nedumbassery: A SriLankan Airlines flight from Colombo with 114 passengers on board made an emergency landing at the Cochin international airport on Thursday morning.

Airport officials said the aircraft, UL 165, landed safely at 8.45 a.m. after the crew spotted a defunct nose wheel and alerted the Air Traffic Control (ATC) authorities here. Personnel of the Fire and Rescue Services and Central Industrial Security Force, and officials of other agencies rushed to the runway on instructions from the airport officials.

The malfunctioning of the nose wheel was noticed during the flight from Colombo to here. After evacuating the passengers, the aircraft was towed to the parking bay.

Fierce battle between Sri Lanka Navy, LTTE

B. Muralidhar Reddy

Claims and counter-claims by both sides on casualties and other losses



In this LTTE handout photo, the outfit’s leader V. Prabakaran honours an Air Tiger wing pilot for the recent raid on the outskirts of Colombo.

COLOMBO: The Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) and a fleet of ‘Sea Tiger’ boats were engaged in fierce battle in the seas off Naagarkovil in the north early on Saturday.

The Navy and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam gave conflicting versions on the battle.

The SLN claimed that its elite special boat squadron (SBS) and rapid action boat squadron (RABS) intercepted a fleet of 15 LTTE attack boats around 5.45 a.m. off the Naagarkovil sea.

“Navy elites attacked the terrorists’ boats using their very own special fighting technique, and destroyed 4 LTTE craft and inflicted damage on the other. Intercepted LTTE radio transmissions revealed that 14 LTTE cadres, including seven brainwashed suicide cadres, were killed and another 16 were wounded. Five sailors were injured in action,” the Navy said.

The Sri Lanka Air Force said its jets pounded LTTE boats struggling to reach the Champion-Paththu coast after having been beaten off by the Navy.

Air Force spokesman Janaka Nanayakkara said two tiger boats were destroyed and three LTTE cadres killed in the air strikes which were carried out at 8.30 a.m.

The pro-LTTE TamilNet maintained that ‘naval flotillas of the Sea Tigers’ engaged in a major clash with the SLN gunships in the seas off Naagarkovil in Vadamaraadchi East from 5.15 to 7 a.m., sinking an SLN Dvora Fast Attack Craft (FAC) and a hovercraft.

Sea Tiger officials told TamilNet that the SLN engaged 20 vessels in the clash, but it was forced to withdraw after suffering casualties. It said seven Black Sea Tigers died in the operation.

“A water-jet vessel of the SLN sustained damage in the battle. The SLN was forced to withdraw, towing the damaged vessel, to the Kaangkeasanthurai (KKS) naval base. The Tigers said their Sea Tiger commandos reached their base, after defeating the SLN,” the web site claimed.

It said the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched heavy artillery barrage across the Northern Front following the sea battle, and SLAF bombers also attacked the coastal area.

Separately, the military said the troops of Task Force 1, engaged in an offensive march west of the Kilinochchi front, captured a two-km LTTE trench line in the general area Paddaruyalvillu, six km northeast of Madam, on Saturday morning.

Fighting went on for hours and the LTTE suffered heavy damage. In a search operation conducted in the area immediately following the confrontation, troops found bodies of 15 LTTE cadres, the military said.

In another report, TamilNet said LTTE chief Velupillai Prabakaran ‘honoured Tiger air wing’ pilots engaged in Tuesday night’s aerial bombings in Mannar and on the outskirts of Colombo.

The LTTE chief ‘conferred awards of valour’ on Tiger commandos, engaged in operations targeting the Sri Lankan forces at the Wanni Headquarters (Wanni SF HQ), and on the “Tamileelam Air Force pilots and operators who took part in consecutive and successful flight operations” of attack against the targets in the south and the bases of the Sri Lankan armed forces.
Photos released

The web site released several photographs of Prabakaran posing with the purported pilots, whose eyes have been blacked out. “The LTTE’s TAF airmen who carried out five consecutive successful missions on Sri Lankan targets received the Blue Tiger Award (Neelap Puli Viruthu).

“The Air Tiger pilots who had participated in three consecutive successful air attacks received the Warriors Award of Tamil Eelam (Thamizheezha Ma’ravar Viruthu) from Prabakaran. Kiddu artillery formation received special awards for their performance on the joint operation against the Sri Lankan Wanni SF HQ on September 9.

“Several commanders of the LTTE and senior officials took part in the event, at an undisclosed venue in Wanni, where the LTTE leaders and commanders paid homage to the Black Tiger Commandos who laid down their lives on the offensive operation on Wanni headquarters of the Sri Lankan military in Vavuniya,” the web site said.