San Diego International Airport reopens after hours-long ground stop

A private airplane’s nose gear collapsed on the runway at San Diego International Airport, grounding all planes and diverting flights for travelers for several hours before reopening Wednesday night, according to officials.

The call was reported around 6:40 p.m. and caused a ground stop after a plane reported difficulty with its landing gear, the Federal Aviation Administration and airport officials reported.

“The aircraft came to a stop without any injuries to those on board, however, it became disabled on the runway, causing the runway’s temporary closure,” airport officials said in a statement. All inbound flights were diverted to other airports during the ground stop.

Signature Aviation, which handles private flights out of the airport, could not be immediately reached for further information on the disabled plane.

The FAA had at one point advised the closure would extend through midnight, but the airport was back open to air traffic by 10 p.m. The airport’s flight status tool on its website remained disabled Wednesday night.

Several flights that had been scheduled to depart San Diego were canceled, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website. A message on the airport’s website urged travelers to check the status of their flights with their airline carriers before arriving at the airport.

Laura Wingard, a San Diego resident, and her husband had just departed on a flight from Eugene, Ore., Wednesday when the plane got turned back to the airport due to the ground stop in San Diego.

The passengers deplaned, then reboarded in anticipation of the runway reopening soon, only to get bad news.

“Almost as soon as we got seated, the captain comes back on and says, ‘I’m really sorry, they’ve now extended it until midnight,’” Wingard said.

“The air escaped all of us at that point.”

The flight deplaned again, and passengers worked to make other travel plans.