Posted on 04/13/2013 7:46:06 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
More than 100 passengers had a miracle escape today after a plane overshot a runway off the coast of Bali and crashed into the sea.
Eyewitnesses said passengers fearing for their lives screamed in panic as the Lion Air jet overshot the runway at Ngurah Rai Airport, near Denparsar.
The aircraft, carrying 101 passengers and seven crew members - then fell into the sea from a height of about 50 metres.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
:: Miracle escape for 108 passengers as plane overshoots runway and lands in the SEA in Bali ::
Actually, SEA is in Washington State not Bali.
If correct, then the runway overshot is a BIG mistake my the pilot; a couple-a-thousand miles of overshot!
“Miracle escape for 108 passengers as plane overshoots runway and lands in the SEA in Bali”
Overshooting a runway in Bali and landing at the Seattle Airport is a major pilot error.
“Lion Air - We Make People Fly” apparently is the company slogan.
Please have a seat in one of our three areas...Smoking, Non-Smoking, and our newest....Burned Beyond Recognition."
On a more serious note, here is the airport and one can see why a little runway 'overshoot' is a problem.
Garuda Air has been overshooting the runway, and missing it entirely, for many, many years. The first time I landed at Denpasar, a Garuda plane could be seen sitting in the shallow water just off shore, still mostly intact. It was there for months before being removed.
Never fly into Bali at night is what we were told back then. The aussies used to refer to Garuda as insya'Allah airways (God willing). Looks like Garuda has some competition. Both are Indonesian.
Now that’s a runway aligned to some hefty onshore/offshore sea breezes!
The runway is 9800 feet long. My lookup of 737 landing requirements - looks like about 4500 feet typical (many variants though).
So, some wild speculation: brake failure... or, touchdown half way or more down the runway.
Now even more so.
“then fell into the sea from a height of about 50 metres.”
I hope the flight was higher than that, or there were a lot of terrorized sea creatures left in its wake.
That is curious in itself, as the airport is listed as being at 14 FEET (less than 5 metres) above sea level. If the aircraft, now boat, fell from 50... then it did so by bouncing into the air. That's typically what happens when a pilot lands too fast and tries to force the plane onto the ground.
Well, I wouldn’t trust anything about aviation in the Daily Mail. Remember that Spanair MD-88 that crashed in Madrid a few years back because the pilots didn’t set the flaps for takeoff? A couple days after that happened, the DM had huge screaming headlines that they had a picture of “the stricken airplane with its engines ON FIRE!” Turns out it was a stock photo of another MD-88 from the same airline, with a different paintjob, with those two slightly-smoky JT8Ds at normal takeoff power.
It didn’t look like the plane hit the water particularly hard...simple runway overrun? Maybe the pilot floated long on the landing (and floated and floated and floated until he was, well, floating). Like you said, there’s no way a 737-800 should run off the end of a 9800-foot runway on landing. They don’t need anywhere near that much pavement to stop.
}:-)4
Lion Air’s been busy for only being around 15 years...from Wikipedia:
On 14 January 2002, Lion Air Flight 386, a Boeing 737-200 crashed on take-off and was written off; no one was killed.
On 30 November 2004, Lion Air Flight 538, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashed in Surakarta, killing 25 people.[29]
On 4 March 2006, Lion Air Flight 8987, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashed after landing at Juanda International Airport.[30] Reverse thrust was used during landing, although the left thrust reverser was stated to be out of service.[30] This caused the aircraft to veer to the right and skid off the runway, coming to rest about 7,000 feet (2,100 m) from the approach end of the runway.[30] No-one was killed but the aircraft was badly damaged.[30]
On 24 December 2006, Lion Air Flight 792, a Boeing 737-400, landed with an incorrect flap configuration and was not aligned with the runway.[31] The plane landed hard and skidded along the runway causing the right main landing gear to detach, the left gear to protrude through the wing and some of the aircraft fuselage to be wrinkled.[31] No one was killed and the aircraft was written off.[31]
On 9 March 2009, Lion Air Flight 793, a McDonnell Douglas MD-90-30 (registration PK-LIL) ran off the runway at SoekarnoHatta International Airport. No-one was injured.[32]
On 2 November 2010, Lion Air Flight 712, a Boeing 737-400 (registration PK-LIQ) overran the runway on landing at Supadio Airport, Pontianak, coming to rest on its belly and sustaining damage to its nose gear. All 174 passengers and crew evacuated by the emergency slides, with few injuries reported.[33]
On 13 April 2013, Lion Air Flight 904, a Boeing 737-800 (registration PK-LKS) from Bandung to Denpasar (Indonesia) with 108 people on board, undershot runway 09 while landing in Denpasar/Bali and fell into the sea. The aircrafts fuselage was slightly ruptured in a video published by local media. All passengers and crew were evacuated from the aircraft and there were no fatalities, only minor injuries.[34][35][36][37]
}:-)4
Actually, while some reports said the plane overshot the runway, Lion Air apparently said the plane undershot the runway. Which makes no sense, given the picture, because it’s facing out to sea.
}:-)4
I have been there and also stayed in a hotel where the planes flew so low over our heads to land. I found the runway really scary. Not Athens scary, but still really intense. There is zero room for error.
No slides deployed?
Sea Lion Air
Bali’s airport is one of my favorite landing experiences.
As for lion Air..No thanks!
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