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Old 9th Apr 2009, 13:35
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fchan
 
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In 1979 I was at Sentani airport in West Papua. I watched Merpati land a medium sized jet (something like a 737 size). His approach was way too high 1/2 mile or so from threshold but, instead of going around, he just dropped the nose to head for the threshold and flared it out hard at the last minute. I have never before or since seen an aircraft approach with negative angle of attack with respect to the ground.

In around 2002 I was at Dili in East Timor on an Indonesian run plane waiting to leave. There was loud banging coming from the hold. Looking out the window you could see them trying to get the cargo door shut. It was clear to me that the crew were more interested in getting the door shut by any means, violent or not, than they were about damaging the door and causing a flight safety problem, as failure to shut it would have caused an expensive flight cancellation and layover as there were no maintenance facilities at Dili. I was rather nervous as we took off, but all was well.
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