See that thing flying above the Brazilian operated Hercules airplane in the photo above? That’s the landing gear, or at least half of it. What you are going to see is one of the most amazing aviation videos we have ever shown on the site.
Apparently the pilots came in too low and tried to touch down too early, catching the landing gear in the rear left of the plane and effectively ripping it off. The pilot continues the landing process and then does an amazing job to keep the plane as level as humanely possible before it finally slows down enough where he no longer gas full control over the machine. You’ll see fire and other destruction as the props hit the ground and (we’re guessing) the engines on that side of the plane blow up. This had to have been one hell of a ride and not in a good way, either.
The next question is what happens after the dust settles. After all, you are in Antarctica. This does not seem like the kind of place where you can just fly in fresh parts and start to make repairs. Between the weather and the fact that they likely do not have any of the tools or equipment necessary to fix the thing, this gets scary quick. Heck, there’s the issue of having a dead plane effectively on the only runway they have to use!
Anyone out there know the after story on this one? Scary stuff.
Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing
note especially how they jump started this crashed plane – I got lost in the rabbit hole of figuring out whether the plane was recovered or not.
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/11/us/after-17-years-buried-in-ice-airplane-flies-in-antarctica.html
Different plane. That’s 321 and is a US C-130 that crashed back around the 70s after a failed Jet-Assisted-Takeoff. It sat 15 years before they dug it out, and another 2 before they got it airworthy. Really cool story. The one in a video crashed back in ’14- I recall when it happened, but I never did hear if they got it out.
Ah. Found it: https://elpinguino.com/noticia/2016/08/07/general-sainz-hercules-brasileno-accidentado-debe-salir-de–la-antartica-entre-octubre-y-marzo-
Dismantled and returned home by boat, or at least that was the plan.