Frontier Airlines plane loses a wheel in hard landing (2025)

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Passengers were left in fear for their lives when a pilot encountered landing difficulties while operating a Frontier Airlines flight bound for Puerto Rico.

Frontier Flight 5306 from Orlando was carrying 228 passengers and approaching Luis Marín Muñoz International Airport in San Juan on Monday when its landing was aborted at the last second.

The Airbus A321 encountered a 'mechanical problem' when one of the wheels broke off the front landing gear, the airline told El Nuevo Día newspaper.

FlightAware - the flight tracking company - showed that aircraft flew around the airport four times and made a second landing attempt.

The airplane was about 500 feet from another runway and continued its flight path, circling around again prior to landing at 10:54 p.m.

Luis Irizarry, who has investigated other aviation accidents, told WAPA television that the aircraft was not stable on its first approach.

'The plane was coming in, but it was in an unstable pattern. It wasn't stabilized for landing,' Izarrry claimed, citing information he gathered from sources on the ground. 'While trying to land, it hit the runway with its nose wheel.'

The expert said the wheel broke from the left side and some of its piece ended in the engine.

'When the nose wheel hit the plane, the pilot grabbed it and gave it power to turn around. At that time, they shut down the left engine to avoid further damage and the possibility of it catching fire. They turned around and landed,' he said.

Irizarry added that the co-pilot had recently started flying with the low-budget airline

'The information we have is that the person flying was the copilot, and the copilot was a new pilot for the airline. When I say new, I mean a young pilot, with a thousand or so flight hours,' he said.

'Perhaps it was his first flight, flying solo and not with a supervisor or a trainer, and that's the situation we fear. That's why the plane wasn't stable because he didn't have it under control.'

A video recorded by Melanie González Wharton, who was on the flight with her husband and their two children, showed sparks coming out of the airplane's left engine.

Irizarry's claim that the novice co-pilot was in control of the airplane seemingly confirmed González Wharton's initial concern.

'Oh my God, I knew it!!! Finally, the answer I wanted to hear,' she wrote on her Facebook page.

'I said the same thing to Edwin [her husband], 'I have a feeling it was a trainee pilot who didn't know how to land properly.' He almost killed us.'

González Wharton told El Nuevo Día that third landing attempt did not have any problems.

'But it was a horrible experience. While we were on the plane going around the island, we were crying, the children were screaming, people were praying, singing loudly,' she said. 'It was an unforgettable experience. It was horrible.'

Frontier Airlines said in a statement that the plane experienced a “hard landing upon arrival,” but it landed safely and there were no injuries. It noted further that the incident is under investigation.

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