Air China flight makes emergency landing in London after landing gear failure

[DefJam]

Air China flight makes emergency landing in London after landing gear failure

PUBLISHED : Monday, 08 September, 2014, 9:45am
UPDATED : Monday, 08 September, 2014, 3:03pm

Alex Millson and Chris Luo

The plane was reportedly an Airbus A330-200.

Air China flight CA852 landing at London Gatwick earlier today.

An Air China flight from London to Beijing was forced to turn back and make an emergency landing after landing gear became jammed shortly after take-off.

Flight CA852 circled over southern England and the English Channel, where it is believed to have dumped fuel in order to make the aircraft lighter, several times before returning to the airport.

The plane had to circle over the English Channel several times before returning to the airport.

The flight had taken off as scheduled at 1.30pm and landed almost two hours later.

The alert sparked the closure of one of Gatwick Airport’s runways for 20 minutes, an airport spokesman told The Independent newspaper.

No injures were reported on board the Airbus.

Air China did not comment on the incident when reached by the South China Morning Post on Monday.

Industry website Aviation Herald, which logs aviation events, reported that the plane had suffered a hydraulic failure as it climbed from Gatwick’s runway. It said the nose gear had retracted after take-off but that a hydraulic failure had stopped the main gear struts from retracting.

This was in line with an account from a Chinese microblog user who identified himself in his profile information as working for Air China. The blogger posted several photos on his personal Weibo account which appeared to have been taken in the cockpit and in the plane cabin during the flight. The pictures purportedly showed hydraulic failure in the plane's panels, as well as the aircraft releasing fuel mid-flight from one of its wings. The Weibo user deleted his post with these pictures on Monday morning.

The plane was later towed from the runway and the runway was reopened.

A number of flights from the airport were believed to have been delayed as a result of the emergency.A photo on Weibo supposedly taken on CA852 shows the plane dumping fuel ahead of the landing.

A photo on Weibo supposedly taken on CA852 shows the plane dumping fuel ahead of the landing

 

[sadshishamo]

When the gears.....any gears don't retract it's a non normal situation. The flight should not continue unless there is no choice eg departure airport suddenly closed. A safe landing can be made without too many problems and after landing the occupants can remain in the plane while it is towed to its parking spot.

If the gears don't extend then there is a big problem that would require an emergency landing with an evacuation of passengers and crew a very likely scenario.