An AeroSucre cargo flight suffered a right main gear collapse at Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport late Saturday. The carrier’s 737-400F freighter came to rest disabled on runway 14R. Debris scattered along the surface until a recovery team cleared the scene Sunday morning.
AeroSucre flight A42143 departed Leticia (LET/SKLT), touching down on runway 14R at approximately 22:11 on July 4, 2026. The aircraft is a Boeing 737-4Q8(SF) converted freighter registered HK-5447. The landing was hard; on contact, the right main landing gear (MLG) collapsed. The lower right wing and fuselage skin then scraped the asphalt as the plane ground to a halt.
No fatalities were reported. The aircraft carried only its crew. Colombia’s civil aviation authority, Aeronáutica Civil de Colombia (Aerocivil), has opened an investigation.
Runway Debris Field and Closure
A main gear collapse during rollout does more than disable an aircraft in place. It generates a debris trail extending hundreds of meters behind the stopping point. Gear-assembly hardware, fasteners, hydraulic fittings, skin panels, and composite fragments shed as the airframe dragged along the surface. Each piece becomes a foreign object hazard requiring systematic identification and removal before operations can safely resume.
Runway 14R at El Dorado (ICAO: SKBO) remained closed through the night. On the morning of July 5, the aircraft was towed clear. El Dorado is Colombia’s primary aviation hub and, at 8,361 feet, one of the highest-altitude major airports in Latin America. An overnight runway closure there carries significant cascading impact across regional and international schedules.
The Aviation Safety Network incident record lists aircraft damage as substantial and classifies the event as a serious incident. The ICAO occurrence category is SCF-NP: System/Component Failure or Malfunction (Non-Powerplant). No preliminary causal analysis from Aerocivil had been published at the time of this report.
Aircraft History and Context
HK-5447 is a 34-year-old airframe manufactured in 1992 (MSN 25163/2264), powered by CFM International CFM56-3 turbofan engines. The aircraft also carries a prior ASN entry — an undershoot at Inírida Airport (PDA/SKPD) on April 10, 2025. The July 4 event places HK-5447 under renewed scrutiny as investigators examine what triggered the right MLG failure.
AeroSucre — trading as Cargo AeroSucre — is a Colombian all-cargo carrier. It operates primarily converted Boeing 737-400 freighters across Colombia and neighboring countries. The carrier routinely serves regional airstrips with varying surface conditions. Hard landing history at demanding approach profiles may factor into investigators’ review of the right MLG assembly’s maintenance record.
What Investigators Will Examine
Without a preliminary report from Aerocivil, only the initial sequence is established: hard landing, right MLG collapse, runway contact. Investigators will likely review flight data recorder parameters — particularly vertical acceleration at touchdown. Maintenance history and fatigue-life tracking for the right gear assembly will also be central to the inquiry. Any prior hard landing entries in HK-5447’s logs will be relevant.
For runway safety teams, the FOD recovery challenge after a gear-collapse event is substantial. A full MLG collapse is not like a blown tire or a contained component separation. It distributes debris of unknown size, composition, and location across an extended runway section. Certifying the surface clean requires a thorough foreign object survey — visual inspection, electromagnetic sweeping, and physical debris collection.
FODNews will update this report as Aerocivil releases preliminary findings. Subscribe to FODNews for incident updates, runway safety coverage, and FOD prevention news from around the world.
