HALIFAX – After landing gear failed, a PAL Airlines (PB) aircraft operating Air Canada (AC) flight AC2259 made an emergency landing at Halifax International Airport.
The airplane, heading from St. John’s to Halifax, skidded down the runway, leaving sparks from the wings scrapping against the pavement.
Air Canada DH8 Plane Crash
The aircraft involved in the incident is a De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400, registration C-GPNA. Furthermore, the aircraft is 24 years old and powered by Pratt & Whitney engines.
The video footage from the incident shows the aircraft’s wings making contact with the runway surface, resulting in a fire during the landing sequence. According to initial indications, there were no casualties among passengers or crew members.
PAL Airlines, the second-largest regional airline in Eastern Canada, operated the trip as part of an Air Canada codeshare arrangement. The airline’s headquarters are at St. John’s International Airport in Newfoundland and Labrador, and it operates scheduled passenger, cargo, air ambulance, and charter flights across Eastern Canada.
The regional airline operates from several sites, including Halifax Stanfield International Airport, CFB Goose Bay, and Montréal-Trudeau International Airport. As a member of the PAL Group of Companies, the airline provides critical air connection across Canada’s eastern provinces.
The event has raised concerns about airplane maintenance processes and emergency landing procedures at rural airports. Aviation authorities will look into the reason of the landing gear malfunction and assess the emergency response performance during the incident.
Jeju Air 737 Crash
On December 29, 2024, a Jeju Air passenger plane crashed and burned at Muan Airport in South Korea, killing at least 85 people. The event happened when the aircraft’s front landing gear allegedly failed to deploy during landing, leading the plane to slip off the runway and collide with a concrete barricade.
At 9:03 a.m. local time, the aircraft, carrying 181 passengers and crew, including two Thai nationals, crashed after completing its voyage from Bangkok. Prior to the deadly crash with the boundary wall, YTN television footage recorded the aircraft skidding on the airstrip with its landing gear retracted.
To tackle the incident, the National Fire Agency sent out 32 fire vehicles and several helicopters. Emergency personnel successfully extracted two survivors – one passenger and one crew member – while attempting to locate others trapped in the debris.
The Transport Ministry immediately initiated an investigation on the landing gear malfunction that caused the tragedy. This tragedy is South Korea’s deadliest aviation disaster since the 1997 Korean Airlines crash in Guam, which killed 228 people.