Posted on 09/23/2007 10:10:17 AM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
German investigators are to examine an Augsburg Airways Bombardier Q400 which landed at Munich today with its nose-gear retracted, after turning back from a service to Florence.
The aircraft was operating a Lufthansa Regional connection on the Munich-Florence route on behalf of the German Star Alliance carrier.
Local reports state that the crew discovered that the nose-wheel could not be deployed as the turboprop started its approach to the Italian city.
It returned to Munich in order to make use of the longer runway. Munich’s parallel runways are 4,000m compared with the relatively short 1,688m strip at Florence.
None of the 64 passengers and four crew members said to have been on board was injured. Augsburg Airways has not yet confirmed the identity of the aircraft involved.
The incident will heap further unwelcome attention on the Q400 following the high-profile main landing-gear collapses which affected two Scandinavian Airlines Q400s within three days earlier this month.
Japanese authorities ordered inspections on the country’s Q400s earlier this year after an All Nippon Airways aircraft landed with its nose-gear retracted at Kochi on 13 March. Investigators discovered that dislodged bushing in the nose-gear assembly had prevented the gear doors from opening.
Good work on the part of the pilots. Did you know Lufthansa pilots learn how to fly in America?
Maybe they should put belly skids on there and forget about the wheels.
Sept. 10th crash: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLexl8AyCck
If the above link doesn’t work, try this one: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/09/10/216702/video-scandinavian-airlines-q400-gear-collapses-on-landing-injuring-passengers.html
Here’s the March 13 nose gear-up landing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHXpV4vZLOU
I’ll bet the pilots and passengers are getting tired of this routine!
BUMP!
Good recovery by the pilots, and good response by the ground crews.
I’ll would imagine those German pilots know how to fly, no matter where they trained. It goes with the territory.
Actually, it appears to be 4 incidents in 6 months and a few days, although it appears two were nose gear, and two were main gear.
German fighter pilots train at Holloman AFB in Alamogordo, NM.
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