Golden Pacific Flight 008

Golden Pacific Flight 008 (GP8/GPC8) was a scheduled passenger flight from Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport to Greenfield International Airport with a stop in Hawaii. On 14 March 2019, the Boeing 767-265ER operating this flight overran the runway while landing due to a loss of control resulting from strong crosswinds. There were 10 casualties on the plane and a further 14 on the ground, making for the deadliest accident in GIA since a Lockheed Electra operated by the Marine Corps crashed into the bay in 1973.

The aircraft was damaged beyond repair and was subsequently written off.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a Boeing 767-265ER powered by 2 General Electric CF6-80C2 engines, registration VP-GSB. It rolled out of Boeing's production line in Everett on April 6, 1991, first flew the day after, and was delivered brand new to Golden Pacific on July 18, 1991.

Accident

At around 4 PM PST on 14 March 2019, Golden Pacific flight 008 took off from Daniel Inouye Airport in Honolulu and started its 4 hour journey from Sydney to the GIA airport. The boeing 767-265ER had 192 souls on board. The plane started its approach to land on runway 9R, however, right before the plane would be able to touch the runway, strong crosswinds pushed the plane slightly to the left and the plane had to go around and try again. Around 8:30 pm PST the plane touched the runway again and started slowing down.

However, due to the heavy winds and slight pilot error resulting from a very long flare (it landed 700 meters past the aiming point), the plane was pushed to the right and hit a taxiway sign causing it to lose a wheel tyre a few seconds after touchdown. Due to this the plane was not able to stop in time and ended up crashing through the fences and right into the busy highway I-205. The plane hit around 15 cars before the fuel exploded seconds later.

Helicopter footage of the crash site

The plane crash ended up taking the life of 10 passengers and 14 people on highway I-205, and nearly the rest were hospitalized.

The wing separated from the fuselage and hit the ILS systems, causing a short circuit and a slightly mediocre electrical fire.

It took around 2 weeks to clean up and fix the highway and airport. This caused mass traffic issues in the areas of Lannex and Rio Pueblo. This also caused SFO and LAX's air traffic to increase due to the reduced aircraft movements the airport can take per day. Additionally, the ILS systems were broken on approach to 27L, meaning if the prevailing winds were from the west, planes had to approach visually, land on 27R or divert to another airport. The system was fixed around a month later from the accident.

Investigation

Insert investigation details from Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'aviation civile (BEA) here.

Aftermath

This incident cost around 1 million USD to repair and restrengthen the airport walls, a further 400,000 to restore the landscape and fix and resetup the ILS systems, and a tad bit more to the families of the deceased.