A Boliviana de Aviación Boeing 737-800 suffered considerable damage to its left wingtip and lost its winglet during a heavy landing at São Paulo Guarulhos International Airport (GRU) in Brazil. Fortunately, there were no injuries reported during the incident.
What happened?
On Thursday, Boliviana de Aviación was operating flight OB736 between Santa Cruz’s Viru Viru International Airport (VVI) and São Paulo Guarulhos. The flag carrier deployed a Boeing 737-800 registration CP-3151 on this route.
Boliviana’s crew was landing on runway 09R at Sao Paulo. They had a hard landing, as can be seen in videos posted by passengers onboard the aircraft and a web camera near the airport.
In the video from the web camera, the aircraft can be seen touching down on the runway. Apparently, nothing is wrong until the left wingtip of the aircraft suddenly breaks down and separates from the rest of the plane.
Meanwhile, in the video from inside the cabin, after touching down, it can be seen how a few objects from the cabin break down, and some shouts can be heard. In a statement, Boliviana de Aviación said 156 passengers and seven crew members were onboard the flight.
The airline explained the incident,
“The aircraft suffered high vibration at the moment of the landing and suffered damages on its external and internal structure, which are currently being evaluated through an investigation process.”
The aircraft involved in the incident
Boliviana de Aviación has a fleet composed of 29 aircraft, including eight Boeing 737-800s. It also operates two Airbus A330-200s, nine Boeing 737-300s, four 737-400s, four 767-600ERs, and two CRJ200LRs.
The plane involved in the incident, registration CP-3151, is 21 years old . It had its first flight in April 2002 and was delivered on May 15 that same year. Yemenia was the first operator of the aircraft, receiving it in 2002 and having it on its fleet until 2010. Then it went to Caribbean Airlines for a stint between 2010 and 2015 and NewGen Airways between 2015 and 2019.
Boliviana de Aviación finally received the aircraft in 2020 and has operated it ever since. It has the capacity to carry 168 passengers in a single class configuration. According to data from FlightRadar24.com, the aircraft has remained on the ground at Guarulhos since the incident took place.
Boliviana de Aviación currently operates about 748 weekly flights, according to data from Cirium. Its 737-800 fleet operates about 194 weekly services, mostly international. From Viru Viru, Boliviana employs this fleet to fly to Cochabamba (CBB), Buenos Aires (EZE), Sao Paulo (GRU), and La Paz (LPB).
Have you ever seen a winglet break down like Boliviana’s winglet before? Let us know in the comment section.
Source: JacDec, El Deber, FlightRadar24.com, ch-aviation