Tindal's crash land

[ThePassingBay]

I've heard that a C210 crash landed at Tindal airport on sunday shutting it down until further notice.
Does anyone know what exactly happened?

[tinpis]

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Pilot safe after belly landing
By GREG McLEAN
08nov05

A TERRITORY pilot was forced to make an emergency landing at Tindal's RAAF air base after his landing gear failed.

The DirectAir pilot was on his way to Darwin on a private flight with no passengers in a single-engine Cessna when he was alerted to the hydraulics failure just after 5pm on Sunday.

He decided to make an emergency landing at RAAF Tindal air base outside Katherine rather than continue on to Darwin.

At the time of the initial report the plane was still carrying enough fuel for a further 40 minutes flying time, forcing the pilot to circle the area to burn off excess fuel before attempting a landing.

Crews from RAAF, police, fire and emergency services as well as paramedics were on the tarmac to respond if required but the pilot landed the plane safely on its belly and wing.

RAAF firefighters hosed the plane down with foam when it came to a halt on the tarmac as a precaution.

DirectAir Charter chief pilot Mark McLaughlin said the emergency landing was not a major incident.

"We're yet to establish what the problem was but there seems to have been a hydraulics failure," he said.

"All pilots are trained to handle these situations and there is always a good outcome.

"Sometimes when there is a failure with the landing gear the pilot isn't aware until they touch down but in this case the pilot knew what was happening.

"He did well and no one was injured."

Paramedics on the scene reported the pilot suffered no injuries but was shaken by the ordeal.

DirectAir only took possession of the aircraft six weeks ago and it has been registered to fly in Australia for less than two years.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating the incident to determine the cause of the hydraulics failure.

NT News 08/11/05

:hmm: At the time of the initial report the plane was still carrying enough fuel for a further 40 minutes flying time



:hmm:


Is there an un-gutsed 210 in Australia?

[squidward]

Yep, here's the article from yesterday's NT news....

'Pilot safe after belly up landing'

http://www.ntnews.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,17175739%255E13569,00.html

One of DirectAir's C210's

hmmm, only 40mins fuel left but was heading for Darwin(?)

[tinpis]

squid we are on the same wave length six minutes apart :hmm:

[magnum pi]

This happened to me a few years ago(not in a 210).Rag reported i circled for 45 min to burn off fuel,when in reality i was trying everything to get the bloody wheels down....I think they just make up every 3rd word & insert the name Cessna. At least he didn`t go down in a cemetery........Over 400 bodies recovered so far..................:\ PI.:ok:

[Vacant Towers]

I still have a (slightly tattered now) newspaper clipping reporting that an aircraft crashed in flames near Glenrowan (Victoria) in 1972.

The aircraft was an L-13 Blanik, which of course is a sailplane:p

The article later goes on to say the aircraft was aero-towed back to Benalla a couple of hours later:{

So a sailplane crashes in flames (!!!) and flys away a couple of hours later. Perhaps it was the God like presence of my student, he happened to be the Regional Director of VicTas for DCA at the time that repaired the aircraft.

The press don't get any better with the passage of time, I can assure you.

VT

[speedbird23]

Just curious.
Pilot was told to divert to Tindal by his company. He reported that he was 135nm from TN at this time. If he was just flying home, how was he alerted to the problem when he seemingly would have been in the cruise?
Only had the aircraft six weeks? Well anyone in Darwin would know that that is not very accurate either!! More like six months.

[Chadzat]

Do 210's have a freefall/manual extension system? Is it normal if the hydraulics fail for the manual system to also fail? In the past year there has been a fair few belly landings with 210's. Is this why they have a "gear door mod"?

Excuse my noobyness.

[alidad]

Let me guess- the circlip that holds the door hydraulic ram together- happened many times.
The most creative solution to the problem was a chap in the Pilbara many years ago who had a load of black fellas on. Got one of them to hang out the door and pull the main strut into locked position with a cargo net. landed safely.

Don't worry CASA you sh*tcanned him years ago. The "three scrooges" was his name............

[Tinstaafl]

In Cessna singles all the manual extension is doing is replacing the normal hydraulic pump. Manual extension won't work if there's insufficient hydraulic fluid in the system.