attempted manoeuvres, status of lights, visual check (low pass), position of landing gear, endurance, fuel remaining, fuel dumping/jettisoning, speed, traffic information, state of runway, aerodrome environment, airport installations, emergency evacuation, emergency slides/escape chutes, etc. , fire hazard/risk, damage, ground services
Incidents on landing
long/short landing, missed exist, stuck in mud, weather, cargo problems, runway confusion, bird or animal hazard, damage to tires, aircraft breakdown, missed approach
A LOT Polish Airlines Boeing 767-300, with 220 passengers and 11 crew, was on approach to Warsaw's runway 33 when the crew aborted the approach at 3000 feet reporting an unsafe gear indication for all three gear struts and entered a holding to troubleshoot the problem for about 80 minutes. Visual verification by fighter aircraft showed none of the gear struts was down, attempts to lower the gear alternatively failed. The aircraft subsequently performed a text book gear up landing, the aircraft was evacuated after stand still. No injuries occurred.
A Boeing 767-300 touched down on Narita Airport's runway 16R, bounced off and touched down a second time nose gear first before the aircraft settled on the runway, rolled out and taxied to the apron. No injuries occurred, the aircraft received substantial damage.
A first post flight examination revealed the fuselage skin received numerous serious creases just ahead of the wing root all around the circumference.
And here is what another pilot who landed just before reported:
Wasn't as simple as that. Landed at NRT around the same time. Probably just before the aircraft concerned. Winds observed at 1000 ft agl were 240/58-72 kts, dropping down to 230/48 kts steady at 500 ft. And then there was a +/- 15 kts WS reported. On my observation it was more like +/- 20 kts windshear! And the turbulence was huge. Moderate to moderate/severe turbulence REPORTED by 4 airplane before me from 500 ft to touchdown. I observed Moderate/Severe all the way down from 500 ft to touchdown. And BTW the winds reported on ground were 220 to 250 at 28 gusting 44 kts. That's a direct crosswind for the runway in use-16R. And the winds were spot on! Airport should have been temporarily closed.
An Iran Air Boeing 727-200, registration EP-IRR performing flight IR-742 from Moscow Sheremetyevo (Russia) to Tehran Imam Khomeini (Iran) with 94 passengers and 19 crew, was on approach to Tehran's Imam Khomeini Airport around 15:20L (11:50Z) when the crew did not receive a down and locked indication for the nose gear and aborted the approach. Following unsuccessful troubleshooting the crew decided to divert to Tehran's Mehrabad Airport where a low approach confirmed the nose gear was not extended. The crew subsequently performed a landing without the nose gear on runway 29L at about 16:00L (12:30Z) and came to a stand still on both main gear and the nose of the aircraft. The aircraft was evacuated, no injuries occurred.
The runway was closed for about 5.5 hours before the aircraft was moved off the runway. Read more about it here
Carrying 140 passengers and six crew, the Airbus A320-232 aircraft departed from Burbank at 3:17 pm PDT (UTC-7). The aircraft, which was built in 2002,[1] bore the tail number N536JB and the name "Canyon Blue". It was scheduled to fly 2,465 miles (3,967 km) to JFK airport.
After takeoff from Burbank, the pilots realized that they could not retract the landing gear. They then flew low over Long Beach Municipal Airport(LGB) in Long Beach (the location of a JetBlue hub) to allow officials in the airport's control tower to take stock of the damage to its landing gear before attempting a landing. It was found that the nosewheel was rotated ninety degrees to the left, perpendicular to the direction of the fuselage.
Rather than land at Long Beach Airport, the pilot-in-command made the decision that the aircraft would land at Los Angeles International Airport(LAX), in order to take advantage of its long, wide runways and modern safety equipment.
The pilots flew the aircraft, which can carry up to 46,860 pounds (21,255 kg) of aviation fuel, in a figure eight pattern between Bob Hope Airport in Burbank and LAX for more than two hours in order to burn fuel and lower the risk of fire upon landing. This also served to lighten the plane, reducing potential stress on the landing gear and dramatically lowering landing speed as well. The Airbus A320 does not have the mechanical facility to dump fuel despite various news agencies reporting that the aircraft was doing so over the ocean.
Because JetBlue planes are equipped with DirecTV satellite television, passengers on Flight 292 were able to watch live news coverage of their flight while the plane circled over the Pacific for hours. The in-flight video system was turned off "well before landing".
Brazil flight makes 'precautionary landing' at JFK
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
NEW YORK (WABC) -- A Brazilian airliner made a successful precautionary landing at JFK Airport because of a problem with its landing gear.
The TAM Airlines flight had what officials described as "twisted front landing gear."
Flight 8078 originated in Rio de Janeiro with 190 people on board.
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More: Follow us @EyewitnessNYCMore: Get Alerts FAA says investigators will talk to the carrier to try to determine if there was an actual problem with the wheel. They know that the time of the landing, the gear was in the proper position.
As related to Port Authority officials, there was believed to be a nose gear problem on the flight. The plane did a "go around" so the tower could look at the wheel. The plane was cleared for landing and it did land "without incident" at 11:00 a.m.
Port Authority staged on the tarmac for emergency response, but the plane landed safely and was able to taxi to the gate under its own power.
The pilots could be heard on radio transmissions thanking the air traffic control tower for their assistance after the landing.
On the ground, passengers described an agonizing end to their journey, being told to get into crash position as they approached the City.
Fortunately, the flight landed safely and no one was injured.
A GROUP of emus on a rural landing strip in South Australia's north-east distracted a pilot who was forced to make a "belly flop" landing in September this year, an Australian Government report has found.
A Cessna 441 plane with eight passengers on board made a wheels-up landing on September 3, after it departed Adelaide on a routine charter flight to the Honeymoon aeroplane landing area, about 400km from Adelaide.
It was the pilot's third return flight to Honeymoon, a uranium mine, that day.
But while on route to the destination, the pilot did not lower the landing gear.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau assistant general manager strategic capability Joe Hattley said the wheels did not have time to come out as a result of the pilot forgetting to lower the landing gear.
"As he was going through his final approach ... he was distracted by emus," he said.
"It is a fairly open area, there was a check to make sure the runway was clear (but) he spotted some emus ... (and) forgot to put the landing gear down."
Peter Burkill was captain of British Airways Flight 38, a Boeing 777 with 152 aboard, when it suffered an uncommanded dual engine rollback and crashed short of the runway at Heathrow on January 17, 2008. This is what he experienced, in his words.
A FedEx cargo plane that crashed during landing Tuesday at Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport hit the ground in a grassy area short of the runway, an airport official said.
Crew members, a 52-year-old Portland, Ore., man and a woman, 26 of Tacoma, Wash., were taken to a hospital but have been released, a spokeswoman at University Medical Center said.
FedEx spokeswoman Sandra Munoz says both were able to walk from the crash.
The crash happened just after 4:30 a.m. Tuesday as the ATR-42 twin-turboprop aircraft was arriving from Fort Worth Alliance Arport in a freezing mist.
The plane hit the ground in grass about 300 feet from the end of the runway, airport director James Loomis said.
"They apparently bounced onto the pavement, skidded down the pavement and veered off to the right," he said. "There is a trail of jet fuel from their impact area, which was in the grass, to where it sits now to the right of the runway north of the terminal."
Officials say the plane caught fire and the blaze was quickly extinguished. Loomis said he could not speculate on whether weather was a factor.
Visibility at the time of the crash was 2 miles and the ceiling was about 500 feet, National Weather Service officials in Lubbock said. A light freezing drizzle was falling at the time, they said.
The plane was operated by Coeur d'Alene, Idaho-based Empire Airways under contract with Memphis, Tenn.-based FedEx Corp.
Daniel Baker from the National Transportation Safety Board's Denver office was en route to Lubbock to investigate, safety board spokesman Peter Knudson said. Loomis said an investigator from Washington, D.C. will assist in the investigation. [1]
While slip devotees might decry the crosswind coping techniques displayed in the accompanying video, the long lens and perfect angle offer an interesting perspective on the relative effectiveness of the crab-and-kick technique that is now clearly the norm for commercial airliners. The video, shot during a gusty storm in Dusseldorf just after the New Year, also testifies to the skill of some pilots in the technique and, in some cases, the ruggedness of modern landing gear. Rate the landings and takeoffs for yourself.
The crew of a ContactAir Fokker 100 on behalf of Lufthansa, registration D-AFKE performing flight C3-288/LH-288 from Berlin Tegel to Stuttgart (Germany) with 73 passengers and 5 crew, received an unsafe gear indication after lowering the gear on appraoch to Stuttgart, aborted the approach and entered a holding to troubleshoot the problem. The main gear could not be lowered despite 90 minutes troubleshooting, so that the crew was forced to land without main gear at 10:49 local (08:49Z). The airplane landed on its belly on runway 07 and was evacuated via slides.
One passenger and one flight attendant received minor injuries, five passengers needed treatment for shock at the airport.
The runway was closed until 18:30 local (16:30Z) - in the meantime takeoffs and landings of small aircraft were possible after authorities granted permission to use the parallel taxiway for such takeoffs and landings. A total of 167 flights had to be cancelled.
On Jul 7th the NTSB reported in a press conference at San Francisco Airport, the crew was cleared for a visual approach to runway 28L, the crew acknowledged, flaps were set at 30 degrees, gear was down, Vapp was 137 knots, a normal approach commenced, no anomalies or concerns were raised within the cockpit, 7 seconds prior to impact a crew member called for speed, 4 seconds prior to impact the stick shaker activated, a call to go-around happened 1.5 seconds prior to impact, this data based on a first read out of the cockpit voice recorder. According to flight data recorder the throttles were at idle, the speed significantly decayed below target of 137 knots - the exact value not yet determined -, the thrust levers were advanced and the engines appeared to respond normally. The NTSB confirmed the PAPIs runway 28L were available to the approaching aircraft before the accident, however were damaged in the accident and thus went out of service again. The localizer was available, the glideslope was out of service, according NOTAMs were in effect. There were no reports of windshear and no adverse weather conditions. The air traffic controller was operating normal, no anomaly was effective, until the controller noticed the aircraft had hit the sea wall. The controller declared emergency for the aircraft and initiated emergency response. ARAIB and Asiana personnel have arrived on scene and have joined the investigation. The Mayor of San Francisco reported runway 10L/28R was cleared for service.
A Vueling Airbus A320-200, registration EC-GRH performing flight VY-2220 from Barcelona,SP to Sevilla,SP (Spain) with 158 passengers and 7 crew, aborted the approach to Sevilla's runway 27 due to fault indications regarding the nose wheel steering and performed a low approach instead showing the nose gear was in its down and locked position, the nose wheel however appeared rotated by about 20 degrees. The airplane entered a holding to troubleshoot the issue and subsequently landed on runway 27 with the nose wheels rotated by 90 degrees at 20:52L (18:52Z) about 25 minutes after the first approach. The airplane came to a safe stop, no injuries occurred, the airplane received grinding damage to the nose wheels.
The runway and airport was closed for 2.5 hours as a result until the aircraft was moved off the runway. Read more
Struck by a lightning at landing
An Aires Boeing 737-700, registration HK-4682 performing flight 4C-8250 from Bogota to San Andres Island (Colombia) with 121 passengers and 6 crew, touched down about 80 meters (260 feet) short of runway 06 and broke up in three parts while landing at San Andres Island Airport at 01:49L (06:49Z). One passenger was killed, 34 passengers received non life threatening injuries of varying degrees. All survivors were taken to a local hospital for treatment or checks.
San Andres Island Police reported, that the airplane was struck by lightning just as it flared and touched down. Police reported 121 passengers, 4 children and 6 crew (131 people) on board.
Colombia Air Force said, the airplane attempted to land in the middle of a powerful thunderstorm but touched down before the threshold of runway 06.
No matter how hard we all try, not every landing is perfect. But thanks to landing gear struts, even a not-so-perfect landing doesn't break your airplane into pieces.
There are 4 primary types of landing gear struts, and all of them are designed to help take the 'shock' out of your landing. Here's how they work.
Rigid Struts
Rigid struts were the original type of landing gear. The idea was simple: weld the wheels to the airframe. The problem was the imperfect landing; a hard touchdown meant the strong shock load transfer went directly into the airframe. And the pilot and passengers definitely felt it.
Leaf-Spring Gear
One of the most common landing gear systems on general aviation aircraft is the leaf-spring. If you've ever flown (or ridden in) a Cessna, you know what it is. These aircraft use strong, flexible materials like steel, aluminum or composites to help absorb the impact of a landing.
Bungee Cords
Bungee cords are often found on tailwheel and backcountry airplanes. One of the most popular examples, and one you've probably seen, is the Piper Cub.
Shock Struts
The last type of strut is the only one that is a true shock absorber. Shock struts, often called oleo or air/oil struts, use a combination of nitrogen (or sometimes compressed air) and hydraulic fluid to absorb and dissipate shock loads on landing. You can find them on some smaller aircraft, like the Piper Cherokee, but you most often find them on larger aircraft, like business jets and airliners.
Shock struts use two telescoping cylinders, both of which are closed at the external ends. The top cylinder is attached to the aircraft, and the bottom cylinder is attached to the landing gear. The bottom cylinder, typically called the piston, can also freely slide in and out of the upper cylinder.
If you look at a cutaway of the two cylinders, what you almost always find is the bottom cylinder filled with hydraulic fluid, the top cylinder filled with nitrogen, and a small hole, called an orifice, connecting the two.
On final to Branson Airport in WingX Pro7 (X-Plane simulation). The iPad moving map makes it easy to see the location of the destination airport.
January 14, 2014 - 12:18am
Look, it could happen to any of us. Landing at the wrong airport is not that hard.
It happened again Sunday evening, when a Southwest Airlines 737-700 made a relatively short landing at M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport (KPLK) in Branson, Mo. (actually one mile south of downtown Branson), six miles north of the destination airport, Branson Airport (KBBG). This is the second recent wrong-airport landing by a large commercial airplane. A Boeing Dreamlifter cargo carrier operated by Atlas Air landed at the wrong airport in Wichita in November. They were headed for McConnell Air Force Base (KIAB) but landed at smaller Jabara Airport (KAAO), nine miles northeast of the intended destination.
It’s interesting how similar these incidents are; both happened at night, both involved destinations that were large airports with long runways and a landing at an uncontrolled airport, and both aircraft had moving maps on their flight displays.
But I’m pretty sure that these moving maps don’t include charts, which is an interesting factor. Moving maps are terrific tools, but situational awareness is vastly improved when the moving map is overlaying an actual chart. When you can see your little airplane flying over the chart, along airways, past little airport and navaid symbols and then, as you near the destination, on the actual approach plate itself, well that’s just a little slice of situational-awareness heaven.
And that is the beauty of the tablet computer, whether an Apple iPad or Android device, with a GPS source and a moving-map app such as ForeFlight Mobile, Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck, Garmin Pilot, WingX, Avilution, take your pick. For a few hundred dollars, you have a wonderful tool that, used as backup, can supplement the real (certified) avionics in the panel. The tablet could even act as an emergency device if the panel goes dark. Just add an external AHRS device, and you have an excellent backup attitude indicator or even, with the Xavion iPad app, an EFIS and moving-map glidepath guide to the nearest runway end in case of all-engine failure.
I don’t pretend to know what happened to the two flight crews involved in these wrong-airport landings, although during an experiment with X-Plane on my computer, it was easy to see that the lights at Clark Downtown, just to the left of the nose of the airplane, were far brighter than the distant lights of Branson Airport. Easy mistake. From 10 miles on final to Runway 19L at McConnell AFB, the bright lights at Jabara, almost in line with the flight path, look awfully compelling.
What if these pilots were equipped with iPads with moving-map apps? Would this have helped?
Looking at the images from the moving-map apps ForeFlight and WingX Pro7, I can see exactly where my airplane is in relation to the airport I’m trying to land at. (I used these two apps for this experiment because they allow simulation of the aircraft’s position on X-Plane without any special equipment.)
Oh, but wait. There’s a fly in the ointment. The FAAdoesn’t allow own-ship position display on tablet apps used in the cockpits of commercially flown aircraft. That’s why all the apps have a setting to turn off own-ship position display. For some reason, theFAA doesn’t think it’s a good idea to supplement situational awareness with capable tools like these apps.
I know that iPads and Android devices aren’t and probably never will be FAAcertified, but the benefit of own-ship display on an actual chart is overwhelming, and the FAA is hopelessly behind the technology curve on this issue.
In any case, I bet that most pilots don’t turn off the own-ship display, no matter what they are flying, unless there’s is an FAA inspector in the jump seat. I wonder if the pilots in these wrong-airport incidents wish they had iPads in their cockpits? Southwest Airlines is planning to equip its pilots with tablets this year, including charting applications and even taking advantage of the airline’s Global Eagle Entertainment (Row 44) airborne Internet access system to obtain weather updates, notams and so on. But I will be surprised if Southwest asks the FAA to allow pilots to turn on own-ship position display on their tablets.
Ironically, now that Southwest allows passengers to remain logged in to its airborne Internet system and use tablets and smartphones from takeoff to touchdown, any passenger who was logged on to Southwest’s flight tracker could have watched live as they landed at the wrong airport. Something that, oddly, the FAA won’t allow the pilots to do.
The subject of ditching is rarely mentioned in aviation texts or classroom sessions. That's a real shortcoming, because all pilots should be familiar with ditching procedures. Perhaps the problem is that ditching (sometimes given the less-threatening, gentler-sounding "water landing" moniker) is too commonly thought to be an issue only in transoceanic flying. But that's wrong. An engine failure or other serious problem can crop up over lakes, rivers, bays, or inlets just as easily as it can over dry land. In cases where setting down in rough terrain could make a forced landing's outcome dubious, ditching in a nearby lake or other body of water may be a much better option. So knowing how to ditch ought to be right up there in priority along with standard, land-oriented forced landing procedures. The fact that ditchings can't easily be practiced the way we practice for "regular" forced landings makes this all the more important. Also, being prepared for a successful ditching means that you have to understand some special rules.
Landing on Contaminated Runways involves increased levels of risk related to deceleration and directional control.
Aircraft Landing Performance data takes account of the deceleration issues in scheduling the Landing Distance Required (LDR), and the Aircraft Limitations specified in the AFM can be expected to impose a reduced maximum crosswind limitation. Operator Procedures may further restrict all such operations, or impose flight crew-specific restrictions or requirements. Despite all procedural precautions, contaminated runway landings are a rare event for most flight crews and although this serves to ensure a full focus on the task, the lack of real experience, and the limited ability to create realistic scenarios in most simulators, means that a full understanding of the issues involved can be an additional safeguard.
Aircraft Type procedures are the correct source of detailed knowledge. This review is intended to introduce the subject in general terms and provide a reference for such aircraft type operational detail.
My recent article “Preparing for Flight” was so well received that I’m inspired to shine light on yet another high-workload phase of flight – arrival and landing. As I mentioned in the previous piece, one of the highest times of workload for flight crews occurs at the gate prior to departure. This is a phase of preparation that sets the precedent for a successful flight. However, alongside the intensity of readying for departure, follows an equally demanding phase of arrival, landing, and taxi to the gate. Thorough coordination and communication between the flight crew and ATC, as well as proper follow-through in guiding the aircraft safely during descent and landing is crucial. I’ll initiate this topic from a point just prior to descent.
As the end of the en route phase of flight nears, pilots begin planning for arrival. Many of the busier airports filter arriving aircraft from all different directions by means of standardized arrival procedures. Each pilot carries with them navigation charts for every airport served by their respective airline, and included are all of the possible procedures that ATC may request to be flown. Each of these procedures has a name, for example, the PHLBO arrival procedure that guides aircraft from the southern U.S. into Newark’s Liberty Int’l airport. Not only do these arrival routes guide aircraft laterally to the airport area, but often they contain vertical guidance as well. On the PHLBO procedure for example, there are many points along the route that aircraft are required to cross at a certain altitude. These altitude assignments are called “crossing restrictions” and they help to ease the workload of ATC. Instead of having to instruct each specific aircraft to descend to different altitudes throughout the arrival, ATC can simply instruct pilots to “descend via the PHLBO arrival”. The pilots, aware of their arrival assignment before even leaving the gate, prepare for the arrival prior to initiating it. They will review the instructions of the arrival aloud to form a plan that conforms with the restrictions. The PHLBO arrival requires descending aircraft to meet multiple crossing restrictions. These altitudes are carefully chosen to separate PHLBO flights inbound to Newark from aircraft arriving and departing other airports in the area, such as Philadelphia Int’l, an airport directly underneath the final portion of the PHLBO arrival. The on-board flight management system (FMS) computer mentioned in my previous article is programmed by the pilots with the arrival as well as its many crossing restrictions and in turn directs the pilots via visual cues when to initiate descent to satisfy each altitude requirement. Pilots also use a mental formula as a back up to know when a descent must begin in order to arrive at a certain point at a certain altitude. For example, if a flight is cruising at 35,000’ and needs to cross a point at 25,000’, the altitude to lose is 10,000’. We drop off the last three zeros, leaving 10. This number is multiplied by three, based on a comfortable glide path of three degrees. Such a gradual descent allows your beverage to stay in place on its tray table. Anyway, 10 multiplied by 3 equals 30, which correlates to miles from the point to begin descent. So, 30 miles away we will begin our descent to meet the restriction - clear as mud right?
It might be possible, especially if you’re prepared for emergencies and travel with trained flight attendants.
By David A. Lombardo - December 2007
What can you do now to increase your survival chances should the unthinkable occur on one of your flights? “Be aware and be prepared is the best advice I can give a passenger,” said Cyndee Irvine, who was a PSA Airlines flight attendant for 10 years and has been a contract flight attendant for the past decade.
Irvine said most passengers don’t understand the concept of bracing for an emergency landing to protect their back and neck.
“If you’re facing the captain, put your head down and grab behind your knees,” she advised. “If you’re facing backward, you should sit up and put your hands under your knees or thighs. If the aircraft stops abruptly, the seatback and headrest will help absorb the shock.
“There’s a trick to exiting through a small emergency exit,” Irvine continued. “You have to put one leg out first, then your body, then the other leg, so you maintain your balance. Falling, with others pushing behind you, is not an option.”
On some aircraft, the best way to use an emergency exit isn’t obvious. On the Gulfstream 550, for example, there’s often a credenza by the over-wing exit. “You have to use the ‘sit, spin, rollover and push’ maneuver,” Irvine said. “You sit on the credenza, spin so your legs go out the window, then roll over on your stomach and push out legs first.”....
A GROUP of emus on a rural landing strip in South Australia's north-east distracted a pilot who was forced to make a "belly flop" landing in September this year, an Australian Government report has found.
A Cessna 441 plane with eight passengers on board made a wheels-up landing on September 3, after it departed Adelaide on a routine charter flight to the Honeymoon aeroplane landing area, about 400km from Adelaide.
It was the pilot's third return flight to Honeymoon, a uranium mine, that day.
The aircraft was en route to Honeymoon from Adelaide.
But while on route to the destination, the pilot did not lower the landing gear.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau assistant general manager strategic capability Joe Hattley said the wheels did not have time to come out as a result of the pilot forgetting to lower the landing gear.
"As he was going through his final approach ... he was distracted by emus," he said.
"It is a fairly open area, there was a check to make sure the runway was clear (but) he spotted some emus ... (and) forgot to put the landing gear down."
The pilot was distracted by emus while landing, according to the report.
Mr Hattley said it was called a "belly landing" or "wheels up landing".
"So it damaged the bottom of the aircraft," he said.
A GROUP of emus on a rural landing strip in South Australia's north-east distracted a pilot who was forced to make a "belly flop" landing in September this year, an Australian Government report has found.
A Cessna 441 plane with eight passengers on board made a wheels-up landing on September 3, after it departed Adelaide on a routine charter flight to the Honeymoon aeroplane landing area, about 400km from Adelaide.
It was the pilot's third return flight to Honeymoon, a uranium mine, that day.
The aircraft was en route to Honeymoon from Adelaide.
But while on route to the destination, the pilot did not lower the landing gear.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau assistant general manager strategic capability Joe Hattley said the wheels did not have time to come out as a result of the pilot forgetting to lower the landing gear.
"As he was going through his final approach ... he was distracted by emus," he said.
"It is a fairly open area, there was a check to make sure the runway was clear (but) he spotted some emus ... (and) forgot to put the landing gear down."
The pilot was distracted by emus while landing, according to the report.
Mr Hattley said it was called a "belly landing" or "wheels up landing".
"So it damaged the bottom of the aircraft," he said.
A GROUP of emus on a rural landing strip in South Australia's north-east distracted a pilot who was forced to make a "belly flop" landing in September this year, an Australian Government report has found.
A Cessna 441 plane with eight passengers on board made a wheels-up landing on September 3, after it departed Adelaide on a routine charter flight to the Honeymoon aeroplane landing area, about 400km from Adelaide.
It was the pilot's third return flight to Honeymoon, a uranium mine, that day.
The aircraft was en route to Honeymoon from Adelaide.
But while on route to the destination, the pilot did not lower the landing gear.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau assistant general manager strategic capability Joe Hattley said the wheels did not have time to come out as a result of the pilot forgetting to lower the landing gear.
"As he was going through his final approach ... he was distracted by emus," he said.
"It is a fairly open area, there was a check to make sure the runway was clear (but) he spotted some emus ... (and) forgot to put the landing gear down."
Comments (1)
Béatrice H. Alves said
at 10:20 am on Jan 19, 2012
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