Virgin Atlantic VS98 damaged on landing by Christmas Eve flash flood in St Lucia?
 

Several islands in the Eastern Caribbean (St Vincent, St Lucia, Martinique and Dominica) had unexpected extreme rainfall on Christmas Eve causing landslides and flooding with a number of rivers bursting their banks. Confirmed deaths are 5 in St Lucia 8 in St Vincent with many getting stuck while doing Xmas shopping and not able to get home due to bridges/roads washed away. Midnight Mass was cancelled which - if you know the Caribbean - speaks volumes!

One of the incidents being reported was that VS 98 on its way from Crown Point Tobago to UVF Hewanorra, St Lucia was just cleared to land (approx 19.00LT) when the Vieux Fort river burst its banks sending a muddy wave through the terminal and over the runway.

The Virgin aircraft is reported to have sustained substantial damage to its landing gear - other reports suggest "a hole in the plane" bad enough to need a team flown in. Photos show the Hewanorra (TLPL)terminal under a foot of water.

Part of the problem seems to be that the Met radar in Martinique has been unservicable and other islands rely on those images for disaster preparedness. The St Lucia Met Office did not even put out their normal 18.00LT report on the 24th (and no reports on the 25th) as their equipment had been washed away.

Can anyone give any more information?

Now being reported on Av Herald:

A Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330-300, registration G-VNYC performing flight VS-98 from Tobago (Trinidad and Tobago) to Saint Lucia (Saint Lucia), was on final approach to Saint Lucia at about 20:14L (00:14Z Dec 25th) and had just received landing clearance when river Vieux Fort burst its banks and flooded the airport reportedly washing the weather station away and setting the runway under water. The aircraft touched down on the flooded runway without warning and managed to come to a stop. No injuries occurred, the landing gear however received substantial damage.

AV Herald now has a photo - substantial damage. Couldn't copy it to here but it can be found on that site.

Accident: Virgin A333 at St. Lucia on Dec 24th 2013, mud landing on runway

the pic shows a few damaged composite panels, can't see any holes in the skin, if so shouldn't be too long to fix it.

Looks like that u/c strut is bent backwards to me. Pretty severe damage which would probably prevent a gear-down ferry flight. :\

330 gear legs are angled backwards.

Company suggest only, ahem, "Minor Damage".

Does look damaged but by the looks of things it seems not to be too serious. :)

Company suggest only, ahem, "Minor Damage".

= a few million quid

BA short of a 747 and now VAA short of another wide-body

i wonder who may pick up some business

HiFly has a spare Bus or two. Oops, sorry, they're all busy covering for Norwegian and their 787s.

So maybe I'm lacking in imagination here, but how did flooding cause this kind of damage?

Is the fuselage damage from water sprayed up by the landing gear? Was it enough depth of water (eg 30 cm or so) that it was almost like a "ditching" on the initial impact/touchdown?

the river nearby broke its banks just before a/c touched down and the flood water contaminated the airfield and runway

consequently much debris which included an LD3 container was on the runway and the the A330 hit it as it touched down

its all in the links above if you care to read

All I can see to support that theory is a quote on AvHerald: "Rumor is the G-VNYC's belly [sic] collided with an LD3 on touchdown." (my emphasis)

Apart from being unsubstantiated, it's hard to reconcile that story with Virgin's statement that "the damage is confined to non-structural parts of the aircraft, we only lost a number of fairings and panels."

RE VS98 UVF
 

Have a look here

Accident: Virgin A333 at St. Lucia on Dec 24th 2013, mud landing on runway

Pretty nasty incident but kudos to the crew

Do you know the 330, do you know what are structural and non-structural parts?

Why, are you suggesting that Virgin don't know the difference ? :O

In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I'm happy to accept the airline's assertion that only non-structural fairings were damaged.

That doesn't sound to me like hitting an LD3 (even an empty one) at touchdown, hence my scepticism. Not to mention the absence of any photos of mangled baggage containers ...

Anyone who really knows and has all the pics won't be sharing on here....