Normally during Kona winds, widebody aircraft land on the "Reef Runway", Runway 26L. Today, a United Airlines 777-222 flying in as UAL201, IAH-HNL, made a surprising landing on 26R. I haven't seen anything larger than a 737-800 land on 26R before today.
Here's N779UA (c/n 29641, l/n 35) just about to land on 26R. This was actually the second attempt at landing. In the first attempt, the aircraft started turning late to line up with the runway, and was still banking at this point. The pilots leveled off and initiated a go around. On the second attempt, they took a much wider approach and had a much more stabilized approach. Below is N779UA just before the nose gear touches down with the thrust reversers opening up.
5 comments:
I work on the south ramp and it was a surprise when they went around. We don't really pay much attention to whats going on out on the runways, I barely turned around to look at the F22's taking off in front of us today. The T7 however was different, fairly quiet and then there's the sound of those huge fans thundering all of a sudden! We thought that Alaska 73 sitting down there off 26R had something to do with it.
I was at gate 6 and heard it on its first past thinking "that was weird". After it landed, it went to gate 8 with airport fire standing by. Most likely it was a medical and they did not want to take the long way in.
It would have to have been a medical emergency for a 777 to land on Rwy 26R. The largest type to land on Rwy 26R is a 757-200 during normal ops, but mostly the runway is for inter-island ops.
Hard to imagine that 777 trying to make that twisting approach ... back in the day, before the Reef Runway, could you imagine a 747-200 making that 26R approach?
I really wish I had my camera for the first attempt. It would have been great to catch the bank angle they had that close to the ground. When I saw it was going to land on 26R again, I rushed to get my camera and got the second attempt.
This bad boy flew right over our warehouse near sand island VERY low! Ran outside to look at what flew over us as I've never heard anything quite like it, and sure enough it was the T7. We are used to hearing HAL717's flying in low on Kona wind days for the most part, so this was quite a surprise. Felt like I was a Princess Juliana airport in St. Maarten for a moment there. Wish I had my camera!
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