FILE PHOTO: Thai Smile Airbus 320

 

By Peter Roche

Last Wednesday, a Thai Smile Airways Airbus A320 made an emergency landing in Phuket at 1pm after suffering an engine failure. The aircraft made a hard landing resulting in a ‘tail strike’.

 

The Phuket Information Centre says that the A320 made a “hard landing” with a tailstrike on the runway, causing damage to the landing strip and the rear of the plane. Fortunately, the pilot was able to bring the plane to a stop and all passengers got off the plane without incident or injury. The incident happened around 1pm.

 

But, the runway had to be closed down for repairs, delaying around 20 flights. The runway was closed for approximately an hour to repair the damage to the runway.

 

Despite the incident, the Airports of Thailand Phuket branch, which manages Phuket International Airport, and Thai Smile, have yet to address the incident publicly. However, the Phuket Information Centre posted on Facebook that the Thai Smile Airbus A320 is awaiting inspection and repair.

 

A tail strike happens with the plane makes a sudden landing and the nose of the aircraft is too high, resulting in the back of the plane scraping on the runway. A tail strike can also happen on take off in extremely rare cases.

 

It was also announced in recent days that Thai Smile is likely to merge with its parent company, Thai Airways, after 8 successive years of losses, amounting to 16 billion baht.

 

This week’s Thai Smile incident comes after another major incident with a flight taking off from Phuket earlier this month.

 

On February 4, a Russian charter plane’s engine caught fire before takeoff at Phuket International Airport.

 

The 309 passengers and 12 crew on board the 26 year old Boeing 767-306ER, operated by Azur Air, were forced to evacuate the aircraft.

 

Footage from the scene showed flames bursting from the right engine of the Russian plane before takeoff was stopped.

 

Passengers reported hearing a loud bang, and the plane was close to taking off at 120 miles per hour when the problem arose. The incident resulted in chaotic flight delays that affected as many as 47 flights out of Phuket.

 

PHOTO: Azur Air Boeing 767 engine catches fire during take off at Phuket Airport

 

Source: https://phuket-go.com/phuket-news/phuket-news/thai-smile-flight-suffers-engine-failure-has-a-hard-landing-at-phuket/

 

-- © Copyright Phuket GO 2023-02-24

 

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Aircraft damaged but passengers safe. Weather clear. Pilot skill score: 3/10

12 minutes ago, rbkk said:

Aircraft damaged but passengers safe. Weather clear. Pilot skill score: 3/10

You are too generous - should be Pilot 0/10

30 minutes ago, webfact said:

A tail strike happens with the plane makes a sudden landing and the nose of the aircraft is too high, resulting in the back of the plane scraping on the runway. A tail strike can also happen on take off in extremely rare cases

So guess we may find out if it was engine failure or not, my guess : Not.

41 minutes ago, JoePai said:

You are too generous - should be Pilot 0/10

I disagree.

Everyone walked away from a potential disaster and the plane was brought down safely and can be repaired.

Oil giv it foive. ????

and I thought their top marketing strategy was..... ""Smooth as Silk""  555

13 minutes ago, Tropicalevo said:

Oil giv it foive. ????

5/10 = 50%.  Which in the Thai education system is a passing grade to be a pilot? It's enough to wipe the "Smile" off my wallet!

1 hour ago, JoePai said:

You are too generous - should be Pilot 0/10

Absolutely. Pilots are trained to land with engine failure without damaging the plane. If he had lost both engines then definitely 10/10

 

10 minutes ago, rbkk said:

5/10 = 50%.  Which in the Thai education system is a passing grade to be a pilot? It's enough to wipe the "Smile" off my wallet!

The reference has gone over your head, but will have drawn a smile from Brit baby-boomers on here.

 

The score system to which Tropicalevo refers only goes up to 5, so a 100% score. I agree with him, the plane suffered a serious technical failure and the crew landed it safely with minimal damage and no injuries.

 

Tough crowd on here!

6 minutes ago, London Lowf said:

The reference has gone over your head, but will have drawn a smile from Brit baby-boomers on here.

 

The score system to which Tropicalevo refers only goes up to 5, so a 100% score. I agree, the plane suffered a serious technical failure and the crew landed if safely with minimal damage and no injuries.

 

Tough crowd on here!

 

As an aviation enthusiast, this is a very bad landing IMHO. He lost power on one of the engines on take-off so he had plenty of time to prepare for an emergency landing. If on the other hand he had lost power just before landing then I would have given him more credit. The A320 can land with one engine although it does require a little more skill from the pilot.

 

34 minutes ago, Tropicalevo said:

Oil giv it foive. ????

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnNHPb6GITQ

 

1 hour ago, JoePai said:

You are too generous - should be Pilot 0/10

So getting the passengers down safely is not worth anything? I wonder what planet you live on.

6 minutes ago, Chelseafan said:

 

As an aviation enthusiast, this is a very bad landing IMHO. He lost power on one of the engines on take-off so he had plenty of time to prepare for an emergency landing. If on the other hand he had lost power just before landing then I would have given him more credit. The A320 can land with one engine although it does require a little more skill from the pilot.

 

Like I said, tough crowd on here. You acknoowledge that it was an "emergency landing" and yet, the fact that there were no injuries whatsoever and minimal further damage to the aircaraft meas nothing to you?

 

When I first started flying it was quite usual for the cabin to give a round of applause on landing, even if it was perfectly routine. Mind you. in those days it felt like a privelege to fly rather than something to be endured.

 

No official announcement. Never happened. Nothing to see here. Reminds me of an incident there 20 or more years ago when a THAI airways plane was landing in bad weather and the plane ended up off the runway. I read that the pilot faced no disciplinary action as 'it would hurt his feelings'. Same thing here perhaps?

3 minutes ago, London Lowf said:

Like I said, tough crowd on here. You acknoowledge that it was an "emergency landing" and yet, the fact that there were no injuries whatsoever and minimal further damage to the aircaraft meas nothing to you?

 

When I first started flying it was quite usual for the cabin to give a round of applause on landing, even if it was perfectly routine. Mind you. in those days it felt like a privelege to fly rather than something to be endured.

 

 

I use the term "emergency" landing in the sense that the pilot had obviously lost the engine but as a flyer, you'll know that the jet can be landed with one engine without damage fairly easily, in fact these aircraft are designed to do just that. My question is what happened that resulted in the pilot damaging the plane.

 

Glad everyone made it to the ground safely but based on the report, the pilot didn't do a great job IMHO.

 

1 hour ago, Photoguy21 said:

So getting the passengers down safely is not worth anything? I wonder what planet you live on.

Obviously on a planet not in our Solar System, or even Galaxy?????

3 hours ago, JoePai said:

You are too generous - should be Pilot 0/10

True, okay an engine failed in flight... makes little or no difference to a normal landing.

The aircraft would have flown normally after making flight control adjustments.

The flight crew had more than enough time to configure a normal approach and landing.

I think there was a little panic or un-professionalism up the front end to have a tail strike on landing.

 

2 hours ago, Tropicalevo said:

I disagree.

Everyone walked away from a potential disaster and the plane was brought down safely and can be repaired.

Oil giv it foive. ????

Engine failures are rare, considering the number of worldwide flights every day.

However all flight crew practice routinely for engine failures during their flight training, which is maintained at all times.

A tail strike is very unusual.

24 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Engine failures are rare, considering the number of worldwide flights every day.

However all flight crew practice routinely for engine failures during their flight training, which is maintained at all times.

A tail strike is very unusual.

And usually attributed to pilot error.

 

Some here are indicating minimal damage, impossible to tell until a thorough engineering inspection.