A Cebu Pacific A321neo’s Nose Gear Went Off the Pavement at Butuan, Grounding 11 Flights

On the morning of August 9, 2026, Cebu Pacific flight 5J786 to Manila was lining up for departure at Butuan’s Bancasi Airport in the Philippines when its nose gear left the paved surface and became stuck in the grass beside the runway. No injuries were reported, and the aircraft, an Airbus A321neo, remained disabled on the ground for hours afterward.

What happened

The aircraft, registered RP-C4120, was backtracking runway 12 to turn and line up for takeoff at around 7:38 a.m. local time when the nose gear ran off the pavement onto a grassy strip alongside the runway, according to The Aviation Herald.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) suspended all landings and takeoffs at Butuan ten minutes later, at 7:48 a.m. Bancasi Airport serves Butuan, a regional hub on the northern coast of Mindanao, and its runway shoulders are not paved to carry a jet’s weight the way the runway itself is.

Butuan has a single runway, so a disabled aircraft anywhere near it closes the airport entirely until the aircraft is moved. CAAP said it was “closely monitoring operations and weather developments in coordination with airline operators and government agencies,” according to reporting by GMA News.

Eleven flights cancelled

The closure forced 11 cancellations across three carriers: five Cebu Pacific flights to Manila, three flights on Cebu Pacific’s regional subsidiary Cebgo to Cebu, and three Philippine Airlines flights to Cebu and Manila. Affected passengers were offered free rebooking, full refunds, or travel credit for a later date.

This is a runway excursion, not the more familiar runway overrun. An overrun happens when an aircraft cannot stop or lift off within the runway’s length and continues past the end. An excursion is any unplanned departure from the paved surface, including sideways, and can happen at low taxi speeds during a turn, as investigators believe happened here.

Excursions at smaller regional airports are not rare. A similar incident closed the runway at Benin Airport in Nigeria earlier this year, when an Enugu Air jet ran off the runway with all 68 people aboard escaping unhurt.

Airbus has not commented on the Butuan incident, and CAAP has not yet said what caused the gear to leave the pavement, whether crew judgment during the tight turn, a wet or soft shoulder, or a marking issue on the backtrack. A formal finding typically follows weeks after the aircraft is cleared and inspected.