This isn’t the first or last time that something like this will happen. Regardless, it can’t help but make for quite a picture…
GetJet 737 “tips” backward in Norway while on ground
This incident happened shortly after 12PM yesterday (Tuesday, June 10, 2025), and involves a 21-year-old Boeing 737-800 with the registration code LY-UNO. Specifically, the flight was operated by GetJet Airlines, a Lithuanian charter airline, which was operating a flight on behalf of Wizz Air, under a wet lease agreement.
Flight W61749 had just operated the 607-mile flight from Gdansk, Poland (GDN), to Haugesund, Norway (HAU). As passengers were deplaning via air stairs and cargo was being unloaded, the aircraft suddenly tipped backward, and the jet’s tail made contact with the ground.
Below you can see the video of the plane’s forward wheel suspended in the air…
Fortunately there weren’t any injuries reported, because as you’d expect, this could pose a risk to both the passengers and crew on the plane, as well as ground staff. The aircraft was temporarily taken out of service, though reentered service this afternoon, after around 28 hours on the ground.
While unrelated to this incident, I think it’s not too hard to figure out which airline this plane previously flew for before GetJet acquired it, based on the modified livery. 😉
What causes planes to “tip” backward on the ground?
It’s pretty rare to see incidents like this occur, which is why something like this makes headlines. What could cause a plane to tip backward, as seen here? While I’m sure an investigation will be performed, presumably this comes down to weight and balance.
To state the obvious, if correct procedures are being followed, a plane isn’t supposed to tip like this, though something went wrong here:
- It’s totally standard for passengers to disembark from front to back, so that’s not typically the cause of something like this (unless the people in the back half of the plane are all sumo wrestlers)
- Instead, more often than not, this is caused by cargo not being unloaded in the correct order, with forward cargo being offloaded before rear cargo
This was probably the perfect storm in terms of having too much cargo and passenger weight in the back of the aircraft, while not having enough cargo and passenger weight in the front of the aircraft. As you can see in the above video, quite a few bags have already been offloaded from the forward compartment.
It’s interesting that this was a 737-800, since more often than not we see incidents with the “longer” variants of jets, like the 737-900. To mitigate the risk of an aircraft tipping backward, some airlines have a tail stand that they use for aircraft. Essentially this is a stand placed near the back of the aircraft that prevents tipping. Presumably that wasn’t being used here.
But yeah, this isn’t the first or last time that we’ll see something like this happen…
Bottom line
A GetJet Airlines Boeing 737-800 operating a flight on behalf of Wizz Air tipped backward, while passengers and cargo were being offloaded at an airport in Norway. Incidents like this are rare, but do happen, and it likely reflects the order in which cargo was removed from the plane.
Fortunately the plane just stayed out of service for around a day, so obviously there was no major damage.
What do you make of this GetJet Boeing 737 incident?
