Created Tuesday, Mar 1st 2022 17:40Z, last updated Wednesday, Mar 2nd 2022 07:45Z
A Republic Airlines Embraer ERJ-175 on behalf of American Airlines, registration N402YX performing flight
AA-4541 from Providence,RI to Washington National,DC (USA), landed on Ronald Reagan Airport's runway 19 at 18:47L (23:47Z), a loud noise occurred at touchdown. The aircraft rolled out without further incident and taxied to the apron maintaining routine communication. The subsequent departure did not report any anomaly.
The FAA reported: "AIRCRAFT MADE A LOUD NOISE ON TOUCHDOWN AND POST FLIGHT INSPECTION REVEALED A HOLE IN THE BOTTOM OF THE AIRCRAFT, WASHINGTON, DC.", reported "SUBSTANTIAL" damage and rated the occurrence an accident.
At 20:05L (01:05Z Mar 1st) Airport Operations conducted a runway inspection and vacated the runway about a minute later. At 20:19L (01:19Z) Airport Operations, who had conducted the runway inspection, radioed tower again and closed runway 01/19 (see NOTAMs below). Up until that time, 92 minutes after N402YX touched down, runway 19 was used for both landings and takeoffs, no observations had been reported by any of the aircraft departing or landing or the runway inspection.
At 20:31L (01:31Z) Airport Operations requested to enter runway 19 from runway 04/22 to continue the runway 01/19 inspection and was cleared onto the runway. At 20:38L Airport Operations requested to also enter runway 33 towards the threshold runway 15 to "give it a good inspection after this situation", about 3 minutes later runway 15 returned to use.
Possibly related NOTAMs (starting about 1.5 hours after touchdown):
!DCA 03/004 DCA RWY 01/19 CLSD 2203010352-2203011100
!DCA 03/002 DCA RWY 01/19 CLSD 2203010153-2203010700
!DCA 03/001 DCA RWY 01/19 CLSD 2203010119-2203010300
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