EBAW 31/01/2007

jan_olieslagers · Post by **jan_olieslagers** » 01 Feb 2007, 07:05

Spent a bit less than an hour at my old home airfield after work. Nothing special to see, couple of biz-jets as usual. But one rather spectacular thing happened: a VLM Fokker had trouble with the landing gear upon landing.

After a very normal visual approach, LH circuit, on final there suddenly came a slightly trembling female voice "Rubens one-two-three-mike going around!". Somewhat surprised, tower replied by asking for "intentions" to which I heard no clear reply. Soon after, I understood: Rubens was reporting trouble with the nosegear, apparently one lamp that should have been green wasn't. They made for Nicky to gain some time to look into things, then came back and requested a low pass, asking the controller to visually verify the gear was lowered. Tower fully agreed, they made the low pass at 1000 feet (not really low, that...) and tower could only confirm there was no sign of a nosewheel! At the end of their low pass, I saw the nosewheel finally appearing, they made another LH circuit and landed normally. Meanwhile, the full airport fire brigade had been alerted and was ready along the runway, even though Rubens had insisted they were not declaring an emergency - the tower controller was not taking any risks. I even observed two fire engines from a nearby municipal fire brigade approaching, not sure if these came to the airport really but they did give that impression.

During downwind, Rubens had further advised that, though the nose gear was down and locked, it would not be steerable so they would require a tow vehicle to vacate the runway.

So it all was quite spectacular to follow on my MP3 player but it worked out very smoothly. I was much impressed by the calm professionalism of all parties concerned. Special applause for the crew of a federal police helicopter who happened to be near, they hovered near the 29 threshold until the safe landing, offering any assistance they could.

Final remark: I couldn't help wondering if the whole thing was a bit arranged by a clever instructor who wanted to test his pupil's steadyness of mind. Anyone know what the "mike" extension to the flight number indicates? P seems to stand for a positioning flight, but M?

Post by **Bruspotter** » 03 Feb 2007, 21:50

Hello

Yes it must have been quite spectacular to hear. A friend of me (lives in Deurne) also followed the whole conversation trough the radio (with Scanner). He told me of this 'emergency' the next morning. Some sort of 'alternative nose-gear' would have been deployed. Am very curious about that. When I'm at VLM technics Wednesday I'm going to try to find out more about the cause and other details.

Hope I can tell you more about it Wednesday or Thursday.

Best regards: Yannick

Established02 · Post by **Established02** » 04 Feb 2007, 00:52

> P seems to stand for a positioning flight, but M?

I'm not familiar with the VLM flight numbering rules, but I would guess it stands for Maintenance. It was an empty test flight after all.

I can double check with VLM Tony.

By the way, as we talked during these very moments, I obviously didn't realise you were the world famous "jan_olieslagers" from Luchtzak.be . 8)

burner737 · Post by **burner737** » 04 Feb 2007, 11:52

correct M is Maintenance ...

Greets Tim

Post by **Bruspotter** » 07 Feb 2007, 20:10

Hello everyone.

As promised I have tried to find out more about this case.
It seemed it was a small quite idiotic problem

There was a fault in the 'sequence system' for the landing.
This system operates the landing gear extension and retraction.
It extends and retracts the landing gear in a certain sequence.
By example :

1- unlock gear doors
2- open gear doors
3- unlock gear
4 - extend gear
- ...

Now there was a error in the sequence of unlocking the nose gear door. Because of this the system could not proceed and operate according to the normal standard procedure. Because of this the unlocked nose gear was kept in the locked nose-gear doors. The pilot tried several times to override the procedure but it wouldn' t work. So a alternater was called to the rescue. This alternator system automatically unlocks all landing gear doors and landing gears , so the gear extends smoothly by the force of the wind. That's what happened after all and the plane could land safely.

Although the Fire brigade was called standby and some critical details had to be given to the tower , number of pax on board (0 , only 2 flightcrew + 1 observer from VLM technics) , and about 2000l fuel still on board , no dangerous products or cargo , ...)

What has to be noticed is that this sort of landings is not without risk. If the gear doesn't reaches it's end position with enough force , the gear might not be 'downlocked' properly and the gear could collapse when landing. But that's only in a small number of very sad cases.

Best regards: Yannick

janhuub · Post by **janhuub** » 07 Feb 2007, 20:45

If the gear doesn't reaches it's end position with enough force , the gear might not be 'downlocked' properly and the gear could collapse when landing. But that's only in a small number of very sad cases.

Can't this this be seen with the green light (gear down and locked).

Jan

Post by **Bruspotter** » 07 Feb 2007, 22:32

Hello

Yes it's perfectly possible that in the cockpit a green light will illuminate when the gear is in downlocked position , and you can also see it on the red bar on the 'downlock bungee' on the main gear (you can see it from inside the plane trought the window) , if the 2 parts of the red bars of the out of 2 members existing downlock bungee are alingned and stand straight on the red indication bar above it , the gear is downlocked.

But in this case it wasn't never a matter of indication , I was just mentioning what would happen if it would not downlock , you would indeed have a indication but in that case you possibly can't do a thing but try to land on your belly. Because the windstream has to produce the power to downlock the gear , as if it doesn't you can't do anything more about it to my knowledge.

Best regards: Yannick

concordino · Post by **concordino** » 08 Feb 2007, 11:21

Hi Jan

Where did you get your time machine, and how was summer 2007? Or maybe the answer is more prosaic - a typo in the title?

C

jan_olieslagers · Post by **jan_olieslagers** » 08 Feb 2007, 12:35

Apparently some very clever admin or moderator needed to cludge my heading - I had mentioned the ICAO code "EBAW", too, for some very obscure reason this was changed to the IATA code "ANT".

I can't understand this, ICAO codes are much more stable and more clear than IATA codes. But of course the mangling of the date illustrates this was either one of the less brighter admins, or one in a lesser day... Trouble is that I can'remember the exact date, so I can no more repair...

Dear admins, may I request you think twice before changing messages and especially their headers? Better still, that you should never do so without consulting the original poster? And don't come and tell me there's no time for that, if your time is so precious than you had better not intervene at all.

Ilyushin · Post by **Ilyushin** » 08 Feb 2007, 13:51

I also prefer the reliable ICAO codes to the less clear IATA ones. But as the admins seem to prefer the IATA codes to keep one standard for this forum, I can understand the motivation for this 'correction'. However, the correct IATA code for EBAW is ANR, and not 'ANT'.

Regards

Post by **Bruspotter** » 08 Feb 2007, 20:44

Hello Jan.

This is your automatic time reminder , it was Wed. 31.Jan '07.

Best regards: Yannick

jan_olieslagers · Post by **jan_olieslagers** » 08 Feb 2007, 20:50

Thanks very much, Yannick. I reset the header to what it must have been originally. Also my gratitude to you and to Tim Burner for explaining and illustrating what happened, both of you obviously have good contacts at Deurne!
Kind regards,

Post by **Bruspotter** » 09 Feb 2007, 15:47

Hello

No thanks Jan , and thanks to you to

Well , you're certainly right about Burner , he has a lot of contacts @ EBAW , well about me it's just a bit a coincedence I do my 'training period' (stages) at VLM technics every two weeks on Wednesday , so I could easily ask for it.
The other luck is that a staff member of the Engeneering of VLM technics is ALSO our teacher in practice so...

not so quite hard to find out about it :p

Best regards: Yannick

burner737 · Post by **burner737** » 11 Feb 2007, 12:10

hello jan,

no problem ... and let me know when you're at the airport again sometime maybe we can meet each other then.

Regards Tim