LaGuardia closed as Southwest flight

LaGuardia closed as Southwest flight's landing gear collapses on impact

rt.com

New York’s LaGuardia Airport has closed Monday after a Southwest Airlines flight lost its wheels on landing. The landing gear under the nose of the plane, which was arriving from Nashville, Tennessee, collapsed as the aircraft was pulling into the gate.
“Standby for more information regarding #Flight345 BNA-LGA. We are gathering details and will post a statement soon,” tweeted Southwest Airlines.

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This just happened, breaking at RT. So the front wheel just fell off..

I'm sure members like Zaphod can agree there has been a bit more plane crashing activity then usual no? OR is it just me?.

Well trains, planes.... more trains...






Well the article isn't fully updated yet, and i need more then 50 words to post this thread.... Yeesh.


rt.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I wouldn't call this a crash activity, it's an accident. But I'd say no more than usual lately. There's more air travel, so more planes, so more in the news. This is just faulty maintenance probably, or a part that went bad. It's unusual, but happens.

It sounds like the nose gear was showing unsafe before landing. They knew there was a problem with it before landing.

It's N753SW, delivered in 1999, operating as Southwest 345 out of Nashville. There were 149 passengers on board, with three reported injuries.

More pics here:
www.jaunted.com...

reply to post by Zaphod58


Agreed. According to these statistics, number of accidents per year for commercial flights have been on a down swing though I couldn't find reliable data for past 2010. www.aopa.org... Maybe you know of more current stats?

I think the reason why it feels like there are more accidents in terms of trains and planes is more likely to do with press coverage. If you think about it, it pays to hype up incidents to make it seem like there is a "problem" when what may actually be occurring is a typical year. Once there has been a "big" one, other similar events are more likely to pop out at a person because it's somewhere stashed relatively fresh in their mind.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


There are a number of sites that have interesting statistics depending on how in depth you want to go.

planecrashinfo.com...
www.boeing.com...
www.ntsb.gov...

even for a Failure its a marvel of engineering, looks reasonably intact for grinding down a run way.

reply to post by benrl


Aircraft are designed for failures to be as safe as possible. Asiana 214 is a prime example. When the gear hit the wall before impact, it broke off, instead of telescoping through the fuselage or into the wings. The fuel tanks remained intact, so there was no fire or explosion. The seats withstood the Gs of impact exactly how they were supposed to, etc.

This should be a fairly easy repair, probably just the nose gear doors, and a new radome as far as the outer skin goes. Probably have to replace the nose gear as well.

You want all three wheels? Don't fly a budget airline lololololololol

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by benrl

 

Aircraft are designed for failures to be as safe as possible. Asiana 214 is a prime example. When the gear hit the wall before impact, it broke off, instead of telescoping through the fuselage or into the wings. The fuel tanks remained intact, so there was no fire or explosion. The seats withstood the Gs of impact exactly how they were supposed to, etc.

This should be a fairly easy repair, probably just the nose gear doors, and a new radome as far as the outer skin goes. Probably have to replace the nose gear as well.

Yep I was just explaining that very thing to a friend who was freaking out after hearing about this latest accident, the fact that only a few people died from a catastrophic landing in SF proves how safe these planes are.

I have a friend who works for an aviation company, every part they produced is registered and cataloged, if anything goes wrong they can trace it back to the machinist who made the damn thing, really amazing.

reply to post by benrl


Which is good, because the Trip Seven is having gearbox problems. They were able to trace them to a certain batch, and have been able to determine how many and when they were produced.

Conflicting reports on the number of injuries. Southwest says five passengers three flight attendants, the media says 6 with back and neck injuries, and four suffering anxiety attacks. While another says 2 with minor bumps and bruises, and 4 anxiety attacks. There were 150 total on board, one breakdown puts it at 145/5.

Ten people were injured, with minor injuries, but six were taken to the hospital to be checked, along with the crew (blood and alcohol tests as well as physicals). The airport hopes to have the runway open again by this morning, after assessing the damage to it.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Conflicting reports on the number of injuries. Southwest says five passengers three flight attendants, the media says 6 with back and neck injuries, and four suffering anxiety attacks. While another says 2 with minor bumps and bruises, and 4 anxiety attacks. There were 150 total on board, one breakdown puts it at 145/5.

time to make some money (insurance claims & lawsuits) I bet you the passengers are receiving calls from plenty of lawyers

reply to post by hp1229


Considering that as soon as the NTSB came out and said the autothrottles on Asiana 214 didn't respond the way the crew thought they would, a Chicago law firm filed suit claiming the autothrottles are defective, I wouldn't put any money on that bet.

So the instrumentation showed a problem with the front landing gear and the pilot warned the passengers to brace.
The plane was well balanced enough to land that way, and now obviously all it needs is an aluminum plate.
And they are drug testing the pilot because he didn't try to use the brakes?

reply to post by Cauliflower


They're required to. Any DOT accident (results in injuries or fatalities) must have an alcohol test within 8 hours, and a drug test within 24. It's the law for any commercial vehicle operator (trucks, planes, buses, trains, etc) that is overseen by the DOT. It's just to rule out the possibility that it was operator error, due to them being incapacitated.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by hp1229

 

Considering that as soon as the NTSB came out and said the autothrottles on Asiana 214 didn't respond the way the crew thought they would, a Chicago law firm filed suit claiming the autothrottles are defective, I wouldn't put any money on that bet.

You know it but the companies most of the time settle the matter before it drags them into court which possibly might end up costing the same with the attorney fees

Oh, not good news for Southwest. The damage is worse than originally thought based on the pictures. The fuselage sustained damage from sliding over 2000 feet down the runway, with the nose gear collapsed. During the collapse, the nose strut punched up through the floor into the electronics bay under the cockpit, causing significant damage to the electronics in the bay.

www.flightglobal.com...

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Oh, not good news for Southwest. The damage is worse than originally thought based on the pictures. The fuselage sustained damage from sliding over 2000 feet down the runway, with the nose gear collapsed. During the collapse, the nose strut punched up through the floor into the electronics bay under the cockpit, causing significant damage to the electronics in the bay.

www.flightglobal.com...

If most of it is modular, it should be easy to replace through 'cannibalization'?

reply to post by hp1229


It should, but it depends on if the bulkhead was damaged or not, and how much damage was done as the gear compressed up into the bay. If the bulkhead is involved, it's going to be expensive, and you could be talking months depending on how fast an engineering crew can be put together, and parts availability.