Frontier A21N at San Juan on Apr 15th 2025, hard touchdown and go around
Last Update: May 21, 2025 / 20:00:36 GMT/Zulu time
Incident Facts
Date of incident
Apr 15, 2025
Classification
Accident
Airline
Frontier Airlines
Flight number
F9-3506
Departure
Orlando, United States
Destination
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Aircraft Registration
N607FR
Aircraft Type
Airbus A321-Neo
ICAO Type Designator
A21N
Airport ICAO Code
TJSJ
The FAA reported: "AIRCRAFT ATTEMPTING TO LAND, STRUCK THE RUNWAY HARD DAMAGING THE LANDING GEAR, SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO."
Passengers reported there had been a shocking hard touchdown, then there were moments of panic on board as the left hand engine was emitting fire.
The airport clarified there had been no fire, the incident is under investigation.
On Apr 25th 2025 the NTSB reported: "While landing on runway 10, the nose landing gear made violent contact with the runway. The landing gear was damaged and a tyre went missing. The crew initiated a go-around, and a fire broke out on engine number 1." The occurrence was rated an incident and is being investigated by the NTSB.
The aircraft is still on the ground in San Juan on Apr 28th 2025.
On May 21st 2025 the NTSB released their preliminary report summarizing the sequence of events:
According to the flight crew, the first officer (FO) was the pilot flying, and the captain was the pilot monitoring during the night flight to SJU. The approach was stable but required a slight lateral correction to maintain centerline while descending through about 150 to 100 feet above ground level (agl) on approach to runway 10.
An aural RETARD alert is designed to occur at a radio altitude (RA) of 20 ft on manual landing to advise the flight crew to reduce the thrust levers to idle. The FO recalled that during the approach, she brought the thrust levers back to idle at 20 ft RA while the RETARD aural alert sounded.
The captain recalled that the landing flare began normally but became high at about 15 ft RA. The FO stated that around 15 ft RA, the captain noted that the aircraft was too high, so she corrected with a shallow descent and then a gradual flare. As the aircraft was about to touch down, the captain called for a go-around. The captain stated that he believed the aircraft was “running out of flying speed quickly, as the throttles were retarded and the pitch attitude was increasing” so he assumed control. He recalled that the airplane was slightly nose down with the thrust at the takeoff/go-around (TOGA) setting when the airplane then touched down firmly.
The captain stated that during the go-around, they heard a loud bang coming from under the fuselage and the FO called out that an engine failure was displayed on the electronic centralized aircraft monitor (ECAM) display.
The air traffic control tower (ATCT) controller reported an engine fire, but according to the flight crew, they only had an indication of an engine failure. Unsure of the damage sustained, the captain asked for a foreign object debris (FOD) sweep of the runway and a description of any debris found. Some metal and tire debris were found on the runway and reported to the flight crew.
The captain stated that he flew a low pass by the ATCT to see if the controllers could determine if all three landing gear appeared to be down. The ATCT controller reported that the landing gear was intact, and the flight crew prepared for a visual approach to runway 8. At touchdown, the airplane behaved normally so the captain elected to clear the runway and set the parking brake as the fire department approached to inspect the number one engine for any fire. No fire was present, and the captain elected to coordinate for airstairs to deplane the aircraft rather than using the evacuation slides. He felt there was no threat to life and the slides posed a greater danger to passengers than the airstairs. He also noted that there were 8 wheelchair passengers on board. The passengers were unloaded via airstairs and bussed to the terminal.
Related NOTAM:
!TJSJ 04/193 SJU RWY 10/28 CLSD 2504160206-2504160400
Metars:
TJSJ 160356Z 12003KT 10SM FEW027 SCT070 25/22 A3001=
TJSJ 160256Z 10005KT 10SM FEW030 SCT070 25/23 A3002 RMK AO2 SLP164 T02500228 51010=
TJSJ 160244Z 09004KT 10SM FEW030 SCT065 24/23 A3002 RMK AO2 T02440228=
TJSJ 160156Z 09007KT 10SM FEW028 SCT065 26/23 A3001 RMK AO2 SLP162 T02560228=
TJSJ 160056Z 10003KT 10SM FEW025 SCT060 25/23 A3001 RMK AO2 SLP160 T02500233=
TJSJ 152356Z 10006KT 10SM FEW025 SCT034 BKN044 26/23 A2999 RMK AO2 RAB44E55 SLP154 P0001 60001 T02560228 10300 20250 53010=
TJSJ 152256Z 08009KT 10SM FEW025 SCT060 SCT085 26/23 A2997=
Aircraft Registration Data
Incident Facts
Date of incident
Apr 15, 2025
Classification
Accident
Airline
Frontier Airlines
Flight number
F9-3506
Departure
Orlando, United States
Destination
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Aircraft Registration
N607FR
Aircraft Type
Airbus A321-Neo
ICAO Type Designator
A21N
Airport ICAO Code
TJSJ
This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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