Boliviana de Aviacion’s Boeing 737-800 Loses Winglet After Heavy Landing In Sao Paulo
IFA Comment: While the winglet is not flight critical this shouldn’t happen. We will monitor the investigation which should take place as this is a structural failure w.r.t ICAO Annex 13.
by Daniel Martinez Garbuno May 6 2023
A Boliviana de Aviación Boeing 737-800 suffered considerable damage to its left wingtip and lost its winglet during a heavy landing at São Paulo Guarulhos International Airport (GRU) in Brazil. Fortunately, there were no injuries reported during the incident.
What happened?
On Thursday, Boliviana de Aviación was operating flight OB736 between Santa Cruz’s Viru Viru International Airport (VVI) and São Paulo Guarulhos. The flag carrier deployed a Boeing 737-800 registration CP-3151 on this route.
Boliviana’s crew was landing on runway 09R at Sao Paulo. They had a hard landing, as can be seen in videos posted by passengers onboard the aircraft and a web camera near the airport.
In the video from the web camera, the aircraft can be seen touching down on the runway. Apparently, nothing is wrong until the left wingtip of the aircraft suddenly breaks down and separates from the rest of the plane.
Link here to review the video clips and read the full article.
