Snow, ice lead to flight cancellations in Europe

BERLIN (AP) — A plane slid off an icy runway, and powerful winds and, heavy snow forced hundreds of flight cancellations across Europe on Saturday as blasts of freezing cold buffeted Europe.

An Air Berlin plane slid off the runway in Nuremberg, Germany, and got stuck in the snow late Friday. Nobody was injured, but the airport was closed for more than two hours.

More than 300 car accidents were reported on icy streets in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, with more than 40 people injured. The western state of North Rhine-Westphalia reported 108 accidents.

At the German-French border near Freiburg, hundreds of trucks were stuck for hours when French authorities closed the highway because of heavy snow. The Red Cross handed out blankets and hot soup to the drivers.

By early afternoon, 226 domestic and international flights had been canceled at Frankfurt airport as a low pressure system from the Mediterranean brought gusty winds and several inches of snow. Crews struggled to clear the runways, and the few planes that managed to take off had to be de-iced first, said Frankfurt airport duty manager Heinz Fass.

In Britain, cold winds swept in from the north, sending temperatures tumbling to minus 7 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of Scotland and northern England. The country is in the midst of its longest cold snap in three decades, and transport has been disrupted in many areas.

The arctic weather — unusual by Britain’s temperate standards — led to record demand for gas. In a webcast Saturday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown reassured Britons that gas supplies were not running out, even though almost 100 businesses had been asked to stop using gas to conserve supplies. Supplies of salt and sand for gritting dangerously icy roads were also running low.

Heavy snow forced the cancellation of all flights at Dublin Airport in Ireland. Traffic at London’s Heathrow Airport, Europe’s busiest, was also affected, with British Airways alone canceling around 50 flights.

Schoenefeld and Tegel, the main airports in Berlin, as well as Munich airport, also reported cancellations.

In France, dozens of flights were canceled in Toulouse, Lyon and Brest. Heavy snow snapped power lines in the southeast, near the Mediterranean, leaving at least 7,500 homes without power. And at least 12 French Cup soccer matches had to be rescheduled because of the cold, the French football federation said.

But conditions improved in Paris, and late Saturday France’s civil aviation authority lifted an order requiring the cancellation of one flight in four at Charles de Gaulle Airport, France’s busiest.