(This article was first published at Fire Aviation)
One of Air Spray’s four-engine L-188 Electras had a problem with its landing gear June 22 and had to make an emergency wheels-up landing at Red Deer Regional Airport in Alberta.
Red Deer News Now reported that according to Graham Ingham, CEO at the airport, the incident happened around 12:20 p.m.
“We had an Air Spray air tanker, an Electra-type aircraft, perform an emergency landing due to the fact it couldn’t get its main landing gear down. After a couple of attempts, they decided that it would be safer to do a wheels up landing, and subsequently they did. Thankfully they came to a complete stop. There were no injuries, no fire and it was the best outcome for everyone.”
Mr. Ingham said two pilots and two other people on board walked away from Air Tanker 490 without any injuries.
The video below shows what looks like an excellent landing, considering the circumstances.
The cause of the landing gear problem has not been released.
Other firefighting aircraft have had landing gear problems:
- Minden’s Tanker 48, a P2V, experienced a hydraulic failure June 15, 2014, resulting in the nose gear collapsing while it landed at Fresno, California.
- On June 3, 2012, only one main landing gear and the nose gear were able to be lowered and locked on Minden’s Tanker 55, a P2V, leaving one main landing gear up or not locked while it landed due to a hydraulics issue.
- On August 17, 2014 a Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) C-130 air tanker experienced a hard landing. The crew detected a potential malfunction with the nose landing gear and executed an emergency landing at Hill Air Force Base near Ogden, Utah. It landed without the nose gear extended.
- An Air Attack plane, a Cessna 337, had a malfunction with the landing gear August 8, 2018 requiring it to make a wheels-up landing at the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport in Idaho.
Putting foam down is next t typical in today’s operations it was applied to reduce the potential of sparks from fuselage igniting any fuel leaking from the aircraft. The foam was believed by the public put down to cushion the aircraft, not a factor at all. The foam used was protein based (liquid from meat processing plants meaning blood ) and salts tasted terrible if you invested any!
50¢ Buss fuse failure?
Do they still put foam down like they’ve shown in the movies? They are heroes, all who fly these planes!!!!
On the runway before the plane lands? Good question.
WOW, not just a nice landing but OUTSTANDING LANDING. Anyone you can walk away from is just great.
Wow! Here’s hoping they figure out how to prevent that, but meanwhile kudos to the crew for staying calm and making it work! Heroes!
Nice piloting.