SXM St Maarten West Jet gear collapse 9/7/2025

From runway skid marks he landed long. Also looked like the pilot was high coming over the beach. Look up that beach. People hang out there.
 
Everything looks consistent with the Alaska Airlines incident at John Wayne airport in Orange County (SNA). Particularly how the strut pushed up through the top of the wing.

That one was not a hard landing. It was found to have been a trunnion pin failure. The trunnion pin had been over-grinded during overhaul at a third party shop which caused overheating which weakened the pin and led to its failure during normal loading.
 
Larry in TN said:
Everything looks consistent with the Alaska Airlines incident at John Wayne airport in Orange County (SNA). Particularly how the strut pushed up through the top of the wing.
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Exactly. You can see in some of the post evacuation photos that the gear is poking through the top of the wing.
 
Brad Z said:
The passengers on board would bed to differ.

Are you by chance a Naval Aviator?
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The video taken of from outside didn't look very bad.

The passenger video is sudden and abrupt because there was no cushion from the strut to an otherwise normal but firm landing. When the top of the mount pokes up through the wing, it kind of defeats the function of the strut.
 
What a nightmare getting that jet repaired on a Island and ferry out. Closed the airport till today reported.
 
Any landing you can walk away from?

But did you die?

I bet they did it for the unscheduled overnight.
 
Brad Z said:
The passengers on board would bed to differ.

Are you by chance a Naval Aviator?
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No, I did actually land in an airliner there about 2 years ago, not West Jet, and it was pretty hard, then they locked up the wheels and left at least 500 feet of rubber on the runway. I haven't read any accounts from the passengers. But I did see the photo Fearless posted, it will be interesting to read the report on this one.
 
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PaulS said:
No, I did actually land in an airliner there about 2 years ago, not West Jet, and it was pretty hard, then they locked up the wheels and left at least 500 feet of rubber on the runway. I haven't read any accounts from the passengers. But I did see the photo Fearless posted, it will be interesting to read the report on this one.
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Locked up the wheels? On a transport jet?

Only way that’s happening is with anti skid not operating.
 
bonefishpete said:
From runway skid marks he landed long. Also looked like the pilot was high coming over the beach. Look up that beach. People hang out there.
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Yup, a few years back, my wife and I spent the day on that beach. It was a cool place to watch planes (of all sizes) landing there. And, yes, he did look to be a bit higher than I remember of large aircraft approaching that runway.
 
Alaska SNA case study deja vu indeed. On this one I'm willing to bet the landing Gs were in the envelope, and likely a structural/mx-dereliction failure.
 
But how many hard landings did it have before?
 
Landing at SXM isn't particularly challenging. It's an RNAV approach with relatively high minimums due to the terrain at the far end of the runway. Runway is long enough for a normal landing. You do have to turn around an back-taxi to clear, either at the end or at a pad about 3/4 of the way down the runway.

Takeoff is a bit more interesting and weight restrictions are an issue. Often it's a Flaps-25 takeoff on the 737. You make an immediate right turn and proceed southbound over the marina.
 
bonefishpete said:
From runway skid marks he landed long. Also looked like the pilot was high coming over the beach. Look up that beach. People hang out there.
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Yeah, people do hang out there….

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10K views · 98 reactions | Ever seen people get blown away—literally—by a plane? At Princess Juliana Airport in St. Maarten, thrill-seekers line up along the fence right behind the runway, just steps from the beach. When jet engines fire up, the blas

Ever seen people get blown away—literally—by a plane? At Princess Juliana Airport in St. Maarten, thrill-seekers line up along the fence right behind the runway, just steps from the beach. When jet...
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I’ve hung out on the beech there a couple of times…a couple of decent bars on each side and reasonable food…not a whole lot of traffic but both bars post the arrival times of flights…not a bad way to spend a beach day and landing seems straightforward but every thing taking off is power full breaks release.
 
Larry in TN said:
There's video from the mountain, looking down at the airport, and it shows a touchdown well within the touchdown zone.
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Definitely hit the mark from other videos.
Also on proper glide and airspeed too.
This is all on the airframe.
 
Larry in TN said:
Landing at SXM isn't particularly challenging. It's an RNAV approach with relatively high minimums due to the terrain at the far end of the runway. Runway is long enough for a normal landing. You do have to turn around an back-taxi to clear, either at the end or at a pad about 3/4 of the way down the runway.

Takeoff is a bit more interesting and weight restrictions are an issue. Often it's a Flaps-25 takeoff on the 737. You make an immediate right turn and proceed southbound over the marina.
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dead on larry. ive never found it to be any more difficult than any other airport. now, loose one on TO and thats a different story......
 
unsafervguy said:
dead on larry. ive never found it to be any more difficult than any other airport. now, loose one on TO and thats a different story......
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The interesting part of this approach, though unrelated to the accident, is that the MAP (MAPON) is 2.0nm from the runway threshold. At that point, the flight director will command a right turn and you'll lose your VNAV path. That can be confusing if you're not expecting it. One technique is to have the PM turn off your F/D at MAPON.

STT has a similar situation on the RNAV Rwy 10 but it's even father from the runway at 2.3nm.
 
Larry in TN said:
The interesting part of this approach, though unrelated to the accident, is that the MAP (MAPON) is 2.0nm from the runway threshold. At that point, the flight director will command a right turn and you'll lose your VNAV path. That can be confusing if you're not expecting it. One technique is to have the PM turn off your F/D at MAPON.

STT has a similar situation on the RNAV Rwy 10 but it's even father from the runway at 2.3nm.
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That’s interesting to me…I’m going to have to look at that in my system, as I doubt it would make the turn at MAPON. I’ve been looking for an example like that since they lowered the DA on the ILS at KRNO that used to be 1800 feet or so AGL.
 
From the look of the wind sock it appears that they landed with a pretty good quartering tailwind. Perhaps coming in somewhat high with the added float from a tailwind component caused them to plant it for fear of running out of runway.
 
Saratogalaw said:
From the look of the wind sock it appears that they landed with a pretty good quartering tailwind. Perhaps coming in somewhat high with the added float from a tailwind component caused them to plant it for fear of running out of runway.
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There is video from the other end of the runway, and above, showing that they touched down well within the touchdown zone of the runway.

Wind reports from the time of the accident showed moderate winds from the ESE.
 
It's interesting to me that when people survive there's a much bigger initial social inclination to seek fault on pilot technique than when pilots die. I see it on my side of the fence too. What a peculiarly human unwitting hypocrisy that one. Almost like giving themselves social permission to attack the living, but conditioned that doing the same for the dead is a no no, probably since youth.
 
hindsight2020 said:
It's interesting to me that when people survive there's a much bigger initial social inclination to seek fault on pilot technique than when pilots die. I see it on my side of the fence too. What a peculiarly human unwitting hypocrisy that one. Almost like giving themselves social permission to attack the living, but conditioned that doing the same for the dead is a no no, probably since youth.
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Maybe because if you live there is accountability. If you die there is none.
 
hindsight2020 said:
It's interesting to me that when people survive there's a much bigger initial social inclination to seek fault on pilot technique than when pilots die.
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In this case, I think it has more to do with how consistent this accident was to the previous accidents that resulted from trunnion pin failures under normal loads.
 
Larry in TN said:
In this case, I think it has more to do with how consistent this accident was to the previous accidents that resulted from trunnion pin failures under normal loads.
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Looks exactly like the Alaska Airlines failure. So it's on maintenance or Boeing my guess or whoever reworked the trunnion.
 
bonefishpete said:
Looks exactly like the Alaska Airlines failure. So it's on maintenance or Boeing my guess or whoever reworked the trunnion.
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Which Alaska? I’m guessing 261, but was there some Alaska landing gear accident?
 
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