Did anyone see the emergency landing at pjia today? Hope no one was hurt. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Sad.gif" alt="" />

I saw some pictures posted elsewhere and there was mention of the it being a plane that carried cargo for UPS. Nobody hurt from what I understand and minor damage to the plane. It appears the front landing gear did not deploy properly. Daily Herald article below.

Emergency landing.

Funny, that article said that flights were re-directed to Grand Case and St. Barths. I would think there would have been some big planes that couldn't land? They surely would not have gone to Grand Case or St. Barths! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Laugh.gif" alt="" />

The article also states that "several planes were circling before getting the okay to land on the runway". Guessing those were the big guys.

The emergency landing happened at 1:49 pm. I checked yesterday's arrivals and AA flight 2219 from Miami did quite a few circles before landing at 3:15 pm. Liat Flight 317 from St Thomas circled once and landed at 3:32 pm. Air France flight 498 from Paris did quite a few circles before diverting to Pointe-à-Pitre and landed there at 3:16 pm. It took off from Pointe-à-Pitre at 4:34 pm and landed at SXM at 5:20 pm. I could not find any information on the flights that diverted to L'Espérance Airport or Gustaf III Airport.

Gustaf III is no longer the name of the airport on St Barth. It was renamed to Remy de Haenen a year or two ago. Among other accomplishments, de Haenen was the first to land an airplane on St Barth, landing on the Savannah where the present airport is located. He also ran an airline out of Tintamarre in the late 40's.

Too bad, sounds like the Air France should have stuck around and could have landed at PJIA, although with coming from Paris, they probably were worried about fuel. At least it sounds like no one was hurt and eventually, everyone got where they needed to go.

Hi Carol,

If I recall correctly, the air carrier ICAO rules are that you can hang around until you are down to just enough fuel to to climb back to altitude, fly to your pre-planned alternate airport and then fly two approaches (missing one and going around for a second) and still land with more than enough fuel still in the tanks to taxi to your gate.

Fuel management is a huge consideration in pre-flight planning...

Bill is right: Fuel management is HUGE.
If you think running out of fuel in a boat, think how it would be in an airplane!