Passengers Evacuate Boeing 737 at the World Famous Sint Maarten Beach Airport After Landing Gear Collapses
- WestJet says all passengers safely evacuated a 16-year-old Boeing 737 at the world-famous Princess Juliana International Airport on Sint Maarten on Sunday afternoon after the plane's landing gear collapsed following a hard touchdown.
Canadian airline WestJet says all passengers onboard a Boeing 737 that experienced a hard landing at Princess Juliana International Airport on Sint Maarten in the Caribbean were safely evacuated from the plane via emergency slides after the plane’s landing gear collapsed on Sunday afternoon.
Flight Details
- Flight number: WestJet WS-2276
- Route: Toronto Pearson (YYZ) – Sint Maarten (SXM)
- Aircraft: Boeing 737-800
- Registration: C-GWSR
- Age: 16 years old
WestJet flight WS-2276 departed Toronto Pearson International Airport at around 8:40 am on September 7 for what was otherwise an uneventful five-hour flight to Sint Maarten.
As the 16-year-old aircraft touched down, the plane experienced a hard landing, and within moments, the right-hand main landing gear appeared to collapse. The aircraft continued to slide down the runway before coming to a halt at the far end.
The airport fire service was immediately dispatched, and the aircraft was sprayed with foam as a “precaution” as passengers evacuated via emergency slides.
Princess Juliana Airport is often commonly known as the ‘plane beach airport’ because of its location adjacent to Maho Beach, which has become an iconic location for tourists and plane spotters to visit the beach to watch low-flying planes landing and taking off from the airport.
Aircraft on final approach will often fly over Maho Beach at an altitude of just 30 meters, making for stunning photos of tourists sunbathing while aircraft roar above them.
In a statement, WestJet said: “At this time, we are awaiting confirmation on the exact nature of the incident. Our teams are focused on supporting our guests and crew, ensuring their safety and care remain our highest priority.”
The statement added: “All guests are accounted for and there are no reported injuries.”
In 2017, a female tourist from New Zealand was tragically killed after getting close to the perimeter fence of the airport while a Boeing 737 was taking off. The jet blast from the two engines knocked the woman over, causing serious injuries.
Sadly, she was pronounced dead on her arrival at the hospital.
Local officials have long warned about the risk of serious injury or even death from jet blasts of aircraft departing SXM, although those warnings do little to stop thrill-seeking tourists from getting right up to the airport perimeter fence to experience the jet blast.
To mitigate the risk, a second fence has been installed to keep tourists a little futher back from the threshold of the runway.
