Air Niugini 737 Undershoots Runway, Crashes Into Lagoon, All Passengers & Crew Safe

It’s good to hear that all pax survived the crash unscathed and are safe.

As the Chuuk lagoon is a divers paradise guess some passengers who were heading there started their diving adventure right from the plane itself 😉

@Tiffany -- It's good to see you blogging a little more, recently. Any plans for another trip with Lucky? (Hopefully without illness this time.)

The airline's statement says " landed short of the runway", in this case a euphemism for crashed into the water. It appears that everyone has survived, some injuries but apparently not life threatening.

That lost luggage claim will be interesting.

Reports don't seem to realize that "landing" derives from the noun "land", so how can you "land" in water?

@Max perhaps it's like taking an "elevator" from the 6th floor to the 1st floor? How can you "elevate" down?

Reports can't realize. Reporters could you realize something though.

Are there any other horcruxes left?

Delightful day to be an aviation blogger. Along with the Air Niugini, you have Ryanair's flight cancellations...

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45667370

@Max: That's why Spanish actually distinguishes between "aterrizaje" and "amaraje". Although I wonder if it's still technically amaraje when you touch down in a river or lake... 🙂

To folks who’re complaining about the use of “landing,” the word land was also used as a synonym for “alight” around the time airplanes became a thing. Also, it’s derived from the Old English hland, which can mean either land or urine.

That looks well "short of the runway," by several hundred yards if the pictures are accurate

Glad everyone is OK

@ Malc -- Thanks! Pinch-hitting this week, but I really enjoy it. Hopefully we'll eventually get back to where this can be a more consistent thing.

And no plans at present -- would love to, but we're at a business point where it's even more difficult for us to be on planes or in odd timezones together than previously, so it's complicated.

@ Max @ Juraj @ Drew -- Hah, I'm glad you all noticed that! I spent like 15 minutes last night trying to thread the needle of English with word choice on this, to the great annoyance of my husband. "The plane is in the sea, what is that called? Is it a 'crash' if the fuselage is intact?" etc.

Air Niugini only flies this route once a week and from what I understand, they change to B737 fairly recently, so it might be lack of experience. We'll see. I saw this exact plane 4 weeks ago at Chuuk. I guess, I have historic pictures now. It would be interesting to read how they going to lift the aircraft from the sea.

United Island Hopper skipped Chuuk today, due to the crash.

"They have ~20 aircraft in their fleet, ..."

Make that ~19.

“The plane is in the sea, what is that called? Is it a ‘crash’ if the fuselage is intact?”

Ditching

@Stuart, came here to say this. Though it seems that ditching implies a sense of emergency or involuntary touchdown on water, so a seaplane would never "ditch" unless it had crashed. Splashdown (another term that could capture this) seems to be confined to space capsules that are slowed down by parachutes and vertically come into contact with a large body of water, like the Apollo capsules.

@Juraj, indeed, there's different words for landing and water-landing in Spanish too. The predominant form in Spain is "amerizaje", not "amaraje". And you're right, wonder if you could still legitimately call it "amerizaje" (literally "sea-landing") if the plane ends up on a lake – though the Chuuk lagoon is no lake, but sea surrounded by a reef barrier.

Glad everyone survived and are safe!

On another note, a lot of experts said a 737 wouldn't be able to hold together in a water landing like Sully's 320 landing.

I'm sure the people at Boein are secretly proud that there plane acted so well in a water landing

@Juraj - same in German, we call it "landen / Landung" if it's on land and "wassern / Wasserung" if it's in water...