By Kenton X. Chance
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent (CMC) – An American Airlines flight travelling from Miami suffered blown main landing gear tyres shortly after landing at the Argyle International Airport (AIA) here on Monday.
There were no immediate official reports of injuries or the number of passengers on board.
Flight AA909 came to an abrupt stop shortly after landing with eyewitnesses saying that they heard “a loud bang when it was passing the terminal building, and then saw smoke coming from the landing gear area”.
There has been no official communication from the AIA authorities or the airline as yet but a local aviation expert with knowledge of the situation told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that it appears that it was “especially windy” at the airport, situated on the country’s east coast.
He theorised that the plane on landing, bounced back into the air, blowing the two tyres on the left main landing gear. Firefighters responded as the aircraft continued towards the other end of the runway before coming to a halt.
CMC has been reliably informed that a local aviation maintenance company was engaged in replacing the damaged tyres on the twin-jet Boeing 737 MAX 8.
Virgin Atlantic, which was arriving here from London via Barbados, circled the aerodrome for some time before returning to the Sir Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados. The outbound Virgin Atlantic flight to London from here has since been cancelled.
At 7.30 pm (local time), the outbound leg of the American Airlines flight, which was supposed to have departed here at 5.25 p.m. (local time) was listed as “delayed” while the Trinidad-based Caribbean Airlines, which was due to operate an 8 p.m. (local time) flight to Port of Spain, has also listed the flight as “delayed”.
This is the first major incident at the airport, which was opened on Feb. 14, 2017. In 2021, an American Airlines flight aborted its take-off while taxiing down the runaway. While there had been speculation that the incident resulted from a bird strike, neither the AA nor the airline had commented on the matter.
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