Newly-released camera footage gives the clearest view yet of the packed United jet that walloped a bakery truck while landing at Newark Liberty International Airport, injuring the driver.
The footage shows United 169 coming in low over the New Jersey Turnpike, where its landing gear appears to crash into the top of a tractor-trailer, according to the video shared on X.
The blow appears to have shoved the trailer into a concrete barrier; the plane also struck a lamp pole.
Footage from a dash cam inside the cab shows the hapless driver rocking as if in an earthquake.
The driver survived the terrifying ordeal with minimal injuries, and none of the 231 people aboard the plane was hurt.
United 169 had been attempting a visual landing on Runway 29 — a notoriously challenging approach.
The maneuver — a “visual” approach in which pilots guide the plane by sight — is infamous for its short runway, nonstandard guidance lights, cross-traffic with other runways, crosswinds, and other tricky features, said Eric Wydra, director of the University of Oklahoma School of Aviation.
“I understand why at Newark they don’t use that runway a lot,” he told The Post.
The Post obtained dozens of complaints from pilots vexed by the notorious “Stadium Visual Rwy 29,” as it is known in aviation circles.
“We were … listening to the Air Traffic Control chatter and also trying to follow the aircraft in front of us and find the runway, which was very difficult to see with all the lights coming from that direction,” wrote one pilot on the FAA’s anonymous Aviation Safety Reporting System.
It has a slim margin for error and can be extremely difficult to course-correct if a plane undershoots an initial 70-degree turn, which appears to be what United 169 did.
“If you undershoot it, then you’re out there in the Wild West,” said Robert Joslin, the former FAA’s chief scientific and technical advisor.
Both Wydra and Joslin insisted the approach is safe — recent aerial fender-bender notwithstanding — as long as both pilot and air traffic control follow protocols to the letter.
“It is a difficult approach, but you have one of two choices: either move that runway or move the turnpike, which isn’t going to happen,” Wydra said.
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