Goodness, one of the runways at Germany’s second biggest airport seems to be having a rough couple of days, after back-to-back incidents.
In this post:
Lufthansa A380 has landing incident at Munich Airport
The Aviation Herald reports on an incident that happened on Monday, August 17, 2026. This involves a Lufthansa Airbus A380 with the registration code D-AIML, which was completing flight LH459 from San Francisco (SFO) to Munich (MUC).
The plane had been cleared to land on the airport’s runway 26L, which is 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) long. At 5:24PM the plane touched down short of the runway threshold, in the zone with the runway lights. The aircraft made contact with some of the runway lights, causing damage to the tires and lights. The plane was able to taxi to the gate, though.
The incident is now being investigated by Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU). The aircraft remains on the ground in Munich nearly two full days after the initial incident.
When it comes to weather, at the time of the incident there was heavy rain from thunderstorms. Winds were 250 degrees at 12 knots, with visibility of around four kilometers, though it temporarily decreased to just over one kilometer at times.
So weather conditions definitely weren’t great at the time of the incident, though that still doesn’t explain what happened. It’s also worth noting that according to NOTAM’s, the runway’s ILS approach is suspended between May 31 and August 31, 2026.
This is the same runway as the Vietnam Airlines 787 incident
Individually, you might not think much of this incident, but here’s the wild coincidence. Runway 26L in Munich is exactly the same runway where a Vietnam Airlines Boeing 787-9 had an accident on Saturday, August 15, 2026.
The plane struggled to take off from the runway, and ended up hitting the lights at the end of the runway. The plane suffered tire damage, a tail strike, and more. This was truly a bizarre accident, because the pilots reported that the plane stopped accelerating at some points while going down the runway, but they felt like they didn’t have enough runway remaining to stop.
Now, let me be clear, unless there was some supernatural force here, this was 100% a coincidence. The Vietnam Airlines 787 damaged the lights on one end of the runway, while the Lufthansa A380 damaged the lights on the other end of the runway.
What are the odds of that, especially when you consider that this is an incredibly long runway, which would (in theory) decrease the odds of either of these incidents happening?
Bottom line
A Lufthansa Airbus A380 landed short of the runway threshold in Munich, causing damage to the plane’s tires, as well as runway lights. Weather at the time of the incident wasn’t good, with heavy rain, and on top of that, the runway’s ILS was out of commission.
What makes this most remarkable is that this is the same runway where a Vietnam Airlines 787 took out the runway lights on the other end just two days earlier, in what was a much more serious accident.
What do you make of this Lufthansa A380 runway incident in Munich?
Widen the runway to twice the width and there will be plenty of room .
MUC is my home airport and its truly strange for this airport to be featured twice in the news within one week, for the wrong reasons.
In fact, I am booked to fly one of the refurbished LH A380s in the next couple of weeks. I wonder how will the incident impact the refurbished A380 allocation. I wonder if my flight, which was meant to be with one of the refurbished A380s, will still get a refurbished A380s or the old configuration one?
Probably woke eco lights in socialist green Germany.
So true :-)))
Since 2006 with a three year interruption Germany had a CDU chancellor with the secretaries responsible for infrastructure being CSU.
Calling lights woke O will not comment.
Everybody is entitled to its own opinion and can keep it even against the facts
Nothing nefarious going on here; but I will continue to fly from FRA.