Emergency landing at Hosea Kutako
CLOSE to 40 people emerged shaken but unscathed from an SA Express passenger jet on Saturday after the aircraft was forced to carry out an emergency landing at Hosea Kutako International Airport due to a malfunctioning nose wheel.
None of the 33 passengers and four crew members on board the Bombardier CRJ 200 aircraft, operating flight SA 1753 from Cape Town to Windhoek, were harmed during the emergency crash landing.
A passenger who was on the aircraft praised the air and ground crew’s handling of the emergency. He specifically praised the pilot, Captain Ian van Breda, who kept everyone on board updated as often as possible and managed to land the aircraft well despite the difficult conditions.
“The captain was on the PA system every ten minutes to explain the situation. He did a good job,” the passenger said.
The problems with the nose wheel were discovered when preparations were being made to land the aircraft at Hosea Kutako International Airport. Its scheduled time of arrival was 12h45. According to the Namibia Airports Company (NAC), the aircraft eventually landed at 14h16.
Although the plane began to descend, passengers noted that it stopped its descent and instead flew over the airport. Once the aircraft had passed the airport, Captain van Breda announced that “they were experiencing a small technical problem”, a passenger said.
Ten minutes later the captain announced that the nose wheel “was not coming out”.
The crew was at hand to soothe the fears of the passengers, while the pilots initiated a number of procedures required by the situation.
For 50 minutes the aircraft circled the airport while they tried several procedural tactics prescribed in order to make the nose wheel drop.
The last attempt, described by a passenger, was when the aircraft ascended and then dropped quickly to try and force the wheel out through velocity. This manoeuvre too failed to extract the wheel.
After about an hour, the captain announced that landing would proceed in five minutes and asked the passengers to brace themselves for landing.
At that stage emergency ground crew of the NAC had prepared one of the airport’s runways for the emergency touchdown by spraying a layer of fire-retardant foam onto the surface.
The passengers said that the initial landing, on the back wheels of the aircraft, was “very soft” but as the nose touched the tarmac, “we heard a lot of noise”.
The emergency landing elicited compliments from many who said it was perfect under the circumstances.
Ambulances and firefighters were on stand-by while the plane made its landing.
According to the NAC the passengers were given counselling and treated for shock before they were reunited with their families.
The airport’s runways remained closed for most of Saturday afternoon, until the aircraft had been removed from the site where it had slid to a standstill. The aircraft was removed at around 17h00.
Except for scratches under its nose section and some damage to the nose wheel compartment doors, it did not appear to be seriously damaged.