A Vietnam Airlines Boeing 787 had an accident today while taking off on a long haul flight from Germany to Vietnam. Fortunately no one appears to have been injured, but I can’t even begin to wrap my head around how something like this could happen…
In this post:
Vietnam Airlines 787 struggles to take off on very long runway
This incident happened today (Saturday, August 15, 2026), and involves Vietnam Airlines flight VN34, scheduled to fly from Munich (MUC) to Hanoi (HAN). The flight was operated by a 10-year-old Boeing 787-9 with the registration code VN-A867.
At 1:57PM local time, the plane started its takeoff roll on runway 26L, which is 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) long. This is about as long as commercial runways get, so it’s way longer than what even a fully loaded Dreamliner would need.
However, something went seriously wrong with this takeoff. The plane accelerated down the runway… and kept accelerating, and accelerating, and accelerating. Eventually the plane seemingly overran the end of the runway, causing damage to runway lights. In the video you can see that huge clouds of dust rose around the aircraft, as the tail struck the ground.
Fortunately the plane did manage to become airborne, though the crew immediately declared an emergency. The plane climbed up to 10,000 feet, and at that point the crew reported that they had an indicator that they had an issue with tire pressure.
The plane circled around the area for around 90 minutes (either to burn or dump fuel), at which point the aircraft performed two low approaches over the runway, so damage could be assessed.
Then the plane landed on runway 26R on the third approach, and it became disabled on the runway, closing the runway for an extended period of time. That landing was at 3:57PM, two hours after the plane first took off.
Below is the takeoff video.
Then below is the landing video.
Below are pictures showing the tire damage and tail strike after the plane returned to Munich.
I think it’s safe to assume that this plane will be on the ground for quite some time, and isn’t going anywhere any time soon…
What could possibly explain this messed up takeoff?
Looking at the video of the takeoff, there’s nothing that stands out to me as being particularly unusual. It looks like the plane is accelerating decently, the flaps are in use, etc. But the plane just keeps going and going.
I tried to pull up the flight data through Flightradar24, which typically shows you the altitude and speed for a plane, but oddly there’s a roughly five minute gap around the takeoff time. I’m not sure how we’re supposed to interpret that.
Either way, it’s hard to comprehend what happened here. If the pilots felt something was off during the takeoff roll, they’d logically abort the takeoff. And a 13,000+ foot runway is particularly long, so they should’ve had a major buffer here.
Typically when we see incidents like this, it’s because the takeoff performance for the plane wasn’t calculated correctly (that’s not to say that’s the cause here, but I’m just saying that’s the most common explanation for this kind of an incident). Did the crew not have the right “numbers” for this flight when determining takeoff performance?
That mistake can happen sometimes, but typically pilots would catch the error, because something looks off. I mean, this was a long haul 787 flight, so pilots roughly know what kind of takeoff performance they should be expecting.
Was there some technical or other glitch that prevented the plane from taking of when it was supposed to, or what? We’ll have to wait for a full investigation, but everything about this incident is very strange.
Bottom line
A Vietnam Airlines Boeing 787 had a seriously messed up takeoff from Munich, as the plane overran the runway on takeoff, causing it to damage runway lights, strike its tail, and cause huge clouds of dust to rise. When the plane came back to land, it also had serious issues with its wheels, and the full damage of the tail strike was discovered.
Particularly given how long Munich Airport’s runway is, there’s nothing about this that looks good… I’m curious to see what an investigation reveals. On the plus side, thank goodness no one was hurt, because it seems like this could’ve also had a much worse ending.
What do you make of this Vietnam Airlines runway overrun in Munich?
The most important question however is whether they served lunch considering the flight duration of over two hours :P
Even just watching the first video with the timing, the plane is already well into its takeoff roll at the start, and it doesn't even start to rotate until the :42 mark. Personally, I've never been on a flight where the takeoff run was >50 seconds, but that's just my experience and and is not, clearly, science.
Either way, that's one helluva' long takeoff run, and it's a huge relief that this didn't end catastrophically.
Could it be wrong flap setting? In any case, Vietnam is an enemy country that still embraces Communism. They should pay reparations to the United States.
That's a great take!
That said, let's withhold judgment until Alert chimes in about it as well. I suspect he'll suggest that the plane was overladen with girl food, and that a 50% reduction in global airline activity will solve the problem.
Giant orange man stowed away in the catering - weighed the plane down!
Indeed, it looks like wrong input for take off unless something seriously wrong with the engines which are unlikely in my opinion considering it flew to MUC fine and not just after a maintenance.