Pilot error?

No casualties so that's good.

Rob.

They don't have a very big fleet, just three 737's, this is gonna hurt them

Wow! It is fortunate that there were so many small watercraft to rescue the passengers!

I'm sure though that all their luggage is ruined.

Seems the flight crew is gonna have some splainin' to do... 🤐

Glad all made it out alive!

Greg

Only 100 feet of water,should have the recorders soon,and answers.

http://www.c7f.navy.mil/Media/News/Display/Article/1647405/us-navy-uct-2-renders-assistance-following-plane-crash-in-chuuk/

 

Edited September 28, 20187 yr by BIGSKY

Yes very unfortunate. A non precision approach (apparently in heavy rain at the time) with an out of service PAPI on runway 04 and the holes in the cheese start to line up.  Just add an in correct altimeter baro setting, for good measure, and you're in for some serious trouble. It must have stopped quick ditching with the gear down.

On 9/28/2018 at 10:38 PM, Matthew Kane said:

They don't have a very big fleet

Well they have an even smaller fleet now. But on the plus side, their fleet appears to have gained a floatplane and two of their crew are now qualified on water landings. 😁

More seriously, it's quite a testament to the robustness of the 737 that it appears largely in one piece for having suffered such a mishap. The 737 appears to have a reasonably respectable record in this regard. If I recall correctly the type has had three 'water landing' incidents over the years if we include this recent incident, plus...

The Garuda Indonesia 737 ditching into the Bengawan Solo River after a dual engine flame out, with one flight attendant killed owing to the tail breaking off during the ditching. A US Air 737 overrunning the runway at LaGuardia and ending up in the East River and breaking up, with three people killed. And an Air Florida 737 which went into the Potomac with only six people on board surviving the crash, plus several fatalities on the ground too; but that was after it hit the road bridge owing to icing on the wings, so that incident was definitely more of a crash which ended up in a river, rather than a ditching or something akin to one.

 

20 hours ago, cowpatz said:

Yes very unfortunate. A non precision approach (apparently in heavy rain at the time) with an out of service PAPI on runway 04 and the holes in the cheese start to line up.  Just add an in correct altimeter baro setting, for good measure, and you're in for some serious trouble. It must have stopped quick ditching with the gear down.

There's been some back-and-forth on pprune.org about whether it actually ditched in the water short of the runway, or if it was from the other direction, a late touchdown and overrun off the runway into the water. A new passenger report indicates they banged at least once on the runway (possible tail strike), then an overrun into the water. This also matches the direction the plane was facing during the rescue.

Yeah I would think overrun given passenger reports and gear down ... gear down at speed into water would likely breakup the aircraft.  Certainly looks more like overrun and much slower entry into the water.

But at this point I’d still suggest Pilot error that could be due to “Company” pressure to make the landing.

Cheers, Rob

 

Original accounts were of an overun and then this changed to a short landing. You would think it would be relatively easy to tell.

Best Details:

http://avherald.com/h?article=4be42f25&opt=1

Edited September 30, 20187 yr by Matthew Kane