Wow: Cockpit Video Shows Air Niugini Crash Landing

By: Ben Schlappig

Published: July 23, 2019

10 comments

Some of you may remember the accident of Air Niugini flight 73, which crash landed in water on approach to Chuuk, Micronesia, on September 28, 2018.

The plane had a total of 47 people onboard, including 12(!!!) crew and 35 passengers. Unfortunately one passenger died in the incident and six were seriously injured.

The crash report of the incident was released this past week by the Accident Investigation Commission of Papa New Guinea. The plane landed about 460 meters short of the runway, and poor visibility due to bad weather led to the pilots relying on their instruments.

The report is pretty damning of the pilots’ performance. They repeatedly ignored warnings, didn’t properly brief for the approach, didn’t adhere to checklists, the co-pilot was ineffective by letting the captain make mistakes, etc.

One of the interesting things to come from this incident is that an engineer happened to be seated in the jumpseat, and he was filming the approach. He was doing this with a cell phone, presumably for fun, though it turned out to be a key piece of evidence in this incident.

Here’s a full screen video of the incident without any sound:

Meanwhile here’s the best quality video I could find with sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL4rn56-Res

I mean… wow. This really makes you wonder what the pilots were thinking, especially as there were 17 enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS) alerts, including eight “sink rate” and nine “glideslope” warnings.

Support OMAAT

Conversations (10)

The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Comment as a member

Membership is free and takes no more information than commenting as a guest. Earn status points for good contributions, and see fewer ads as your status grows.

Loading comments…

Recent Comments

The latest from the OMAAT community.

Richmond_UK Guest

July 25, 2019, 8:25 am

@Rob B: "The captain and pilot in command was a 52-year-old Papua New Guinean male who had 19,780 flight hours, including 2,276 hours on the Boeing 737.[3]:7 The first officer was a 35-year-old Australian male who had 4,618 flight hours, with 368 of them on the Boeing 737."

‼ 0

Bobby Guest

July 23, 2019, 10:06 pm

Continuing below minima is a cardinal sin. Obviously they weren’t visual with the approach lighting at any stage when crashing so far short of the runway. Indeed should be charged with manslaughter due to gross negligence.

‼ 0

Rob B Guest

July 23, 2019, 6:56 pm

One must ask the question.... where are the pilots from? Where did they receive their "training"?

‼ 0

Amy Guest

July 23, 2019, 6:38 pm

Yet another accident where carry-ons are an issue: "A couple of passengers stated in their response to the written questionnaire that they were annoyed that a cabin crew member at the over-wing exit forced them to leave cabin baggage in the aircraft. However, despite the instruction, several passengers still egressed the aircraft with their bags. [...]" (p. 33) "There were two notable instances where the removal of baggage by passengers slowed the egress. One passenger stopped inside the aircraft and leaned out the right aft over-wing exit to pass a carry-on bag to a US Navy diver standing on the wing assisting the evacuation. That diver first threw the bag to the divers in the rubber inflatable boat before assisting the passenger from the aircraft. When the passenger was on the wing, he removed his life jacket and he was then observed to be wearing a shirt with US NAVY printed on it. He remained on the wing for a short time trying to assist the US Navy divers evacuate passengers, cabin crew and the Load Master egressing via the same over-wing exit, which gave the appearance that he was part of the US Navy rescue group. [...] Another instance was where a passenger who had egressed the aircraft with cabin baggage (a backpack) was assisted by the US Navy divers to re-enter the aircraft and move forward to retrieve his shoes." (p. 34)

‼ 0

Jason New Member

July 23, 2019, 6:14 pm

I couldn't see the view that the F.O. had when he called visual on the runway. As a pilot, I can tell you I'd have hit the TO/GA switch on the throttles and gone around. I believe it's the PIC that said he was going to just keep going at one point. Wrong answer buddy, you don't have visual then you go around. Totally preventable accident and complete negligence on the part of the crew. Here's a better version of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oe6_fqrSmI

‼ 0