Trigana Air Service plane lies on the tarmac after skidding for just under a mile.
It was a bit of a rough landing.
An Indonesian cargo plane slammed into the runway and skidded for just under a mile (1 kilometer,) tearing off its landing gear, while attempting to land on Tuesday morning.
The Trigana Air Service plane was touching down at Wamena airport in West Papua, Indonesia, at about 7.30am when things started to go wrong.
Plane lands at 0:20 seconds
Pilot Matt Dearden, who has been flying in Indonesia for seven years, told CNN that the plane was in low cloud when he attempted to land early on Tuesday.
“They touched down very hard in a nose high attitude which instantly collapsed both main gear. The left gear was ripped from the airframe as it skidded along the runway,” he said.
“It came to a rest a long way from the impact point and skidded just off the right side of the runway, scattering debris as it went.”
No lives were lost in the crash, marketing director for Pertamina Ahmad Bambang told online news portal detik.com. The pilot, co-pilot and technician were able to escape.
On his Twitter account, Bambang said the state-owned energy company had hired the plane to deliver fuel supplies to Jayapura and Wamena — two small towns in Papua.
“We are sorry for fuel supply disruptions,” he said, adding they were looking for more ways to deliver the goods.
Dearden said there had been no injuries but it would take a while to remove the plane’s wreck from the runway.
“Sadly this happens far too often out here,” he said. “There was an almost identical crash here in Wamena almost exactly a year ago.”
Wamena airport is surrounded by high mountains and often has cloud at unusually low levels, Dearden added. “There is no instrument landing equipment here either so all landings are hand flown visually,” he said.
Trigana Air Service didn’t immediately respond for a request for comment.
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