A Boeing 777 belonging to LATAM Brasil suffered a severe tail impact during departure from Milan-Malpensa on Tuesday afternoon, which led to an emergency landing in Milan, where the eleven-year-old aircraft has been located ever since.
The incident was captured by an airport surveillance camera, which shows the plane kicking up dust and smoke as its tail dragged along the runway for about seven seconds, attempting to lift off the ground.
Once the plane was finally airborne, the pilots aborted the climb at an altitude of 6,000 feet and entered a holding pattern to dump fuel before returning to Milan and making an emergency landing.
Fortunately, the plane landed without incident, but due to the extent of the damage, the aircraft may have to remain grounded in Italy for some time so that repairs can be carried out.
For your information: In January 2024, an Air France Airbus A350 suffered a serious tail impact incident while landing at Toronto Pearson Airport, which resulted in the aircraft remaining grounded for months while extensive repairs were carried out on the damaged aircraft.
It was only in June that the aircraft was deemed airworthy and its return to Paris was permitted. Since then, however, it has remained on the ground at Charles De Gaulle Airport.
The Boeing 777 involved in Tuesday’s incident has quite the eventful past. In 2018, it was involved in a serious emergency landing when a serious and widespread electrical fault occurred on a cross-Atlantic flight from Sao Paulo to London Heathrow.
In fact, the electrical problem was so severe that an emergency ram air turbine (RAT) was deployed to provide some power before the aircraft landed overloaded in Belo Horizonte.
On LA8084, the problems were so severe that passengers reported that the power and lights in the cabin had failed, while the pilots were unable to dump fuel due to the electrical problems.
