Juliana airport runway set to reopen this afternoon

The incident that occurred yesterday, Sunday September 7, at 1:29 pm, when WestJet's Boeing 737-800 landed on the runway at Sint Maarten's Princess Juliana airport has had an impact on traffic. Flights have been suspended since yesterday, and a technical team including WestJet experts and engineers arrived on Monday morning from Calgary (Canada), to inspect the damaged aircraft, work on the repair of the damage and carry out the necessary repairs.They are working on evacuating and securing the runway to enable operations to resume. The reopening of traffic had been announced for this Monday at noon. According to the information JSB has been able to gather, checks are due to continue until 1pm. "Our teams at Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIAE), as well as a specialized WestJet recovery team, are working hard to ensure that theaircraft is back inservice .ration WestJet, are working hard to safely remove the aircraft from the runway," said airport management in a statement released shortly after noon on Monday. Once the aircraft has been cleared and SXM Aviation Civile has completed the required inspection, flight operations will resume. "

The Air France flight from Paris scheduled for Monday September 8 has been cancelled. Since yesterday afternoon, some passengers departing from Saint-Barthélemy who were due to board a flight to Juliana have been directed to Grand Case airport, in Saint-Martin. Flights from Saint-Barth to Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin Grand Case and Puerto Rico were able to operate.

Operations at Juliana could resume in the afternoon, once the runway has been cleared and confirmed to be undamaged.

In the many images broadcast online of the landing of the WestJet Boeing, arriving in Sint Maarten from Toronto, Canada, the aircraft lands hard on the runway. The landing gear broke off and the fuselage was punctured in the right wing. Emergency services intervened immediately and deployed foam as a precautionary measure," said the airline in a statement on Sunday afternoon. The aircraft's evacuation slides were activated and all passengers and crew were safely taken to the terminal. All passengers are safe and no injuries have been reported."