Air NewZealand Boeing 777300ER Image: John Taggart/CC BYSA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
An incident recorded on Friday, January 27 involved a Boeing 777 striking the runway side lights while landing in adverse weather conditions.
The situation in Auckland, New Zealand developed just before the moment when the airport terminal was inundated by the torrential rains that hit the region.
The aircraft involved was a Boeing 777300 registered under registration number ZKOKN with local company Air New Zealand at the time it was completing flight NZ124 from Melbourne, Australia to Auckland.
The pilots landed the large aircraft at 1740 local time (0440Z) on runway 05R, but the jet made a sharp right and then slight left turn from the centerline before exiting the runway.
Although the operation was safely completed, the airline reported that the plane made contact with several runway side lights, damaging them.
Trajectory of the aircraft on landing Image: FlightRadar24
Meteorological Bulletin Conditions (METARs) for the period close to the incident show that between 04:30 and 05:00 the rain varied from moderate to heavy, winds reached up to 16 knots (30 km/h), with a Heading from 10 degrees to 140 degrees and horizontal visibility from 5,000 to 1,800 meters:
NZAA 270500Z AUTO 10005KT 050V140 1800 +RA BR SCT016 /// BKN028 /// BKN075 /// 19/19 Q1008=
NZAA 270430Z AUTO 05016KT 010V070 5000 RA BR SCT009/// BKN048/// OVC100/// 19/19 Q1008=
Information (NOTAMs) issued to pilots showed that the side lights on runway 05R/23L between taxi lanes A8 and A9 were damaged. The airport said the runway lights were repaired around 9:30 p.m. Shortly thereafter, the terminal was flooded, which had to be evacuated.