Sky Airlines 737 Has Close Call Landing, Strikes Wing on Runway [VIDEOS]
Sky Airlines Boeing 737-200 with wing damage after a wing strike at La Serena (Image:Andres Pablo Loyola/Twitter)
A Sky Airlines flight attempting to land at La Serena’s La Florida Airport in Chile Wednesday narrowly avoided disaster when the pilot struck the right-side wing tip (wing strike) on the runway.
Sky Flight 101 was coming in to La Serena from Antofagasta, in Northern Chile and was attempting to land at a highly irregular angle for touchdown (see video below). As the pilot tried to land, he struck the right hand wing on the runway before pulling up and diverting to Copiapo, Chile.
There were no injuries reported and the Boeing 737-200 was grounded.
It is not known if the aircraft had any mechanical issues prior to landing or if it was pilot error.
La Serena is known for some dicey weather and tricky approaches.
The incident is under a full investigation.
That was a close one!
VIDEOS:
Category: Airnation
Y I K E S
Pilot=Fired
The pilot had no business trying to land that bird…he was so out of position. He is indeed lucky not to have crashed that plane.
Woah! He wasn’t in line at all! I wonder if the winds played a role…
Here’s another video. See 21 seconds. The flap track fairing is hanging off!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=88mK0SlAMwI#!
Crap! That’s a lot of damage! I ‘m going to add this above. Thanks for posting this Chris.
It’s amazing the rest of the wing held up! After seeing that CRJ’s wing get torn off when the guy drove it into a jetway, it’s amazing this old 737-200 held up! good engineering i guess.
You would figure that winds would have pushed him off course. Why on earth did he try to land???
I guess he just made a mistake… Bad one though!
I’d imagine this incident went down something like this LOL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z42fchrzhHY
Tough planes Boeing makes, but that pilot had a massive breach of good judgement, and should not be flying for a while even if weather a factor. That simply should not happen.
I have to agree, Phil. There are so many accidents that are caused by bad pilot judgement, and this could have easily been one of them. Thankfully they got this thing airborne again and were able to land safely.
I wasn´t aware that La Serena (Chile) airport was plagued with “dicy weather”. I am not a pilot but have landed there a few times in a private plane without ever a problem. Surely the pilot coming from Antofagasta further north had a previous weather report about conditions in Serena and should have avoided attempting to land there if the conditions were risky. I consider it a miracle that he was able to continue flying with the damaged wing and flaps and reach nearby Copiapó. I agree with Phil that this pilot should be grounded and take an intensive up to date training course before being allowed to fly again.
Liese, having never been there myself, I was told by a few they have some pretty good crosswinds. That could be wrong. I appreciate you pointing that out.
Pilot judgment and crosswind bursts aside, with that type and intensity of impact they are VERY lucky that the aileron did not jam in full deflection. Then piloting skills become paramount!