Heart-stopping video shows an Alaska Airlines flight making a rocky landing in Tropical Storm Hilary, sending sparks flying and passengers screaming

Natalie Musumeci
Updated ·3 min read
10

  • Video shows the moment an Alaska Airlines flight made a terrifying landing in Tropical Storm Hilary.

  • Sparks flew off Alaska Airlines Flight 1288 when it touched down at a California airport on Sunday.

  • Alaska Airlines said the plane "was unable to taxi to the gate due to an issue with its landing gear."

A heart-pounding video shows the moment an Alaska Airlines flight made a rocky landing at a Southern California airport during Tropical Storm Hilary, causing sparks to fly and frightened passengers to scream.

Alaska Airlines Flight 1288 made a turbulent touchdown in the storm at Santa Ana's John Wayne Airport at around 11:30 p.m. on Sunday as the left wing of the Boeing 737 appeared to scrape the ground, footage taken by a passenger shows.

"What the fuck, there's sparks outside!" a passenger filming the hard landing can be heard saying amid screams and shouts from other travelers on board the flight, according to a video posted to YouTube.

 

Sparks and smoke could be seen coming off the plane's wing after it hit the ground on the runway at the Orange County airport, the footage shows.

"I was panicking. When I first saw the sparks, I thought the plane was going to catch on fire," Abhinav Amineni, the traveler who took the video and posted it online, told ABC7.

Amineni told the news outlet that other passengers were yelling out when the plane made the rough landing after the flight departed from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington.

Donna Delfin, another of the 106 passengers on board, told ABC7 that she saw the sparks fly off the plane when it came "screeching to a halt" in the pouring rain and wind.

"I stood up and saw that my left side of the plane was tilted up, and the right side plane was tilted down," Delfin said. "So I was like, 'Oh my God. What had happened?'"

The Federal Aviation Administration told Insider that the crew aboard the Alaska Airlines flight "reported issues with the aircraft's landing gear while taxiing to the gate."

 

A spokesperson for Alaska Airlines told Insider that the flight "experienced an issue soon after landing" and said that the plane "was unable to taxi to the gate due to an issue with its landing gear."

Passengers were forced to deplane on the taxiway and were then bused to the terminal, the FAA said.

No one was injured, according to fire officials.

Crews with the Orange County Fire Authority were called to help after passengers became "stranded" on the taxiway, the agency said.

"Firefighters worked with airport staff and the pilots to safely get everyone off the plane," said the agency.

The spokesperson for Alaska Airlines apologized for the incident and said the airline's focus is on "taking care of our guests who were on board, including retrieving their checked bags."

"While this incident is a rare occurrence, our flight crews train extensively to safely manage through many scenarios," the spokesperson added.

Read the original article on Business Insider