No one was hurt, and the crew got out safely, Turkey’s transportation and infrastructure minister, Abdulkadir Uraloglu, said after a FedEx cargo plane came down at Istanbul Airport on Wednesday with its nose gear still up.
The Boeing 767, flying as FedEx Express Flight 6268 from Paris Charles de Gaulle, was on the last leg of its trip when the pilots realized the front gear had not opened, state-run Anadolu Agency said. They radioed the Istanbul tower. Rescue and fire crews were sent out before the landing, and the ministry said the aircraft touched down with guidance from the tower and stayed on the runway.
A video posted on social media shows the plane settling onto its rear wheels and then lowering its nose onto the front of the fuselage. Footage obtained by Reuters shows sparks and some smoke as the front scraped along the tarmac. The jet came to a halt and was covered in firefighting foam. No fire appeared to break out.
A drill pilots practise
Pilots in the video hold the nose above the runway for several seconds after the main wheels touch. That looks like the emergency routine for landing with a retracted nose gear, which pilots train for, according to the SKYbrary aviation database.
It has happened before. Last June, a 22-year-old Delta Airlines Boeing 717 landed smoothly without its nose gear in Charlotte, North Carolina. A fractured component was later blamed.
What officials say
The runway stayed closed while the plane was being removed, Uraloglu said. IGA, the airport operator, said the other runways kept operating normally. A transport ministry official said teams were examining the scene as part of the investigation and gave no cause for the failure.
FedEx said it was working with investigators. Boeing sent questions to FedEx. The jet is a freighter of nearly 10 years, based on a passenger design from the 1980s, and Boeing has faced heavy media and regulatory scrutiny after a series of incidents on its smaller 737.
Sources
- FedEx Airlines, Boeing-made plane forced to land in Istanbul without front wheels
- Boeing 767 cargo plane landing without front gear on Istanbul runway captured on video | CBC News
