Qatar Airways 777 near collision with air balloon landing in São Paulo, forced to make evasive maneuver
A Qatar Airways Boeing 777-300ER was forced to make evasive maneuvers while approaching São Paulo yesterday when an unmanned hot air balloon drifted into the aircraft’s approach path.
The aircraft, a Boeing 777-300ER registration A7-BEV operating flight QR779 from Doha Hamad International Airport (DOH) to São Paulo Guarulhos International Airport (GRU), was on approach to GRU when an unmanned hot-air-balloon drifted into the aircraft’s flight path, luckily the pilots were able to spot the hot-air-balloon and made evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision. The incident was witnessed by Rafael Freitas, who was photographing aircraft landing at the airport (plane-spotting). According to Freitas, “the Boeing 777 came in a little misaligned with the runway to avoid the balloon. When it had passed the balloon, it turned to correct its alignment.”
Credit: Rafael Freitas
While the aircraft was able to land safely without any damage, had the pilots not seen and avoided the balloon, it could have been ingested into one of the aircraft's engines and caused a potentially serious incident.
It is currently unknown who was responsible for the hot air balloon; releasing unmanned hot air balloons is illegal in Brazil. However, more balloons tend to be released at this time of year to coincide with the country’s annual June Festivals (Festas Juninas).
Aviation Weekly has reached out to Qatar Airways for comment on the incident but has not received a response as of the time of writing.