A Boeing 737-300SF of the Indonesian airline Trigana Air Service made a belly landing at Wamena Airport in Jayawijaya, Papua on Tuesday Sept. 13.
A video below shows how the aircraft skids on the runway with only its nose gear fully extended.
The video however does not show the moment of touchdown because the view is blocked by another Boeing 737, so it is not clear whether the main landing gear legs did not extend – due to pilot error or technical failure— or if they were lowered but collapsed in the very hard landing.
Wamena Airport was closed following the incident.
“The airport will remain closed because the aircraft is still on the runway. It will be removed from the location only after an initial technical investigation is conducted by a National Transportation Safety Commission [KNKT] team to reveal the causes of the landing failures is finished,” Wamena Airport head Rasburhani told The Jakarta Post.
Rasburhani said several flights had been cancelled due to the airport’s closure. “There are between 150-160 flights at Wamena Airport every day. The closure has caused many flight cancellations,” he said.
The aircraft, which came in from Papua's Sentani airport, was carrying 14 tonnes of fuel, rice and sugar belonging to Indonesian state energy firm Pertamina. The fuel load was safe, Pertamina marketing director Ahmad Bambang said on online news portal detik.com.
Trigana Air Service is based in Jakarta and started its operations in early 1991 but has a long history of safety issues. It is on the EU’s black list of airlines that are banned from operating to the bloc since July 2007.
The Aviation Safety Network lists a total of 14 occurrences for Trigana Air Service in its safety database.
In August 2015, a Trigana Air ATR-42 aircraft crashed in the mountainous region of Papua killing 54 people and a Trigana DHC-6-300 Twin Otter aircraft crashed in November 2006, killing all 12 on board.
A Fokker F-27 Friendship 600, leased from Trigana Air Services, crashed into a muddy field after the aircraft developed engine trouble shortly after take-off in July 1997.
The crew tried to make an emergency landing at Sulaiman Airbase, but the aircraft clipped roofs and a wall of a housing complex and the F-27 broke up and caught fire; 28 of the 50 crew and passengers on board lost their lives.
