L-188 air tanker makes emergency wheels-up landing

air tanker l-188 wheels up landing red deer alberta — Tanker 490, an L-188, made an emergency landing June 22, 2019 at Red Deer Regional Airport when it had problems with the landing gear. Screenshot from the video below just before it touched down on the runway.

(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.

air tanker 490 landing gear Red Deer Airport — Air Tanker 490 had a problem with the landing gear at Red Deer Airport, June 22, 2019 and had to make an emergency landing. Photo courtesy of Red Deer Airport.

Air tanker 481 Lockheed Electra L188 — File photo of another Air Spray L-188, Air Tanker 481, at McClellan, March 12, 2018. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

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.

Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire. View all posts by Bill Gabbert

7 thoughts on “L-188 air tanker makes emergency wheels-up landing”

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!