As the 48th ICANN meeting is set to start in Buenos Aires, many of the attendees were stranded today in Montevideo, Uruguay and other South American airports due to an airport closure in Buenos Aires. An Austral Embraer ERJ-190 on behalf of Air Austral/Aerolineas Argentina coming from Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), overrun the runway and only came to a halt after the nose of the machine had hit the localizer antenna about 220 meters/730 feet past the runway end at 5:45 local time this morning (UTC-3). None of the 96 passengers was injured and they were all taken to the terminal. According to reporting of the airport there was a cold front passing through the area at the time. The airline reports that the incident occurred due to a sudden change in wind direction and speed.
Flights into the aiport resumed again after about three hours, but some attendees will now only arrive tomorrow. DNN was not able to confirm if any ICANN 48 attendees were on the flight itself.
[via AVHerald and the ICANN Social Group on Facebook, picture posted on twitter by @JuanMCornejo]