I was on APC at Luqa in 1977 just before we were invited to leave.
An Air Malta Boeing 720 was carrying out crew training and had been pounding the circuit for a few hours. After a particularly firm landing, the trainee slammed the nosewheel onto the runway and, given the stresses and strains of mishandling, it promptly separated from the aircraft and bounced off under its own steam.
Foam was laid on Mr Mintoff's brand new runway and the 720 orbited for another hour or so until it was down to a sensible landing weight. After a nice piece of flying by (I'm sure) The Captain, the nose was lowered carefully to the tarmac and the aircraft stopped safely. The runway was black for quite a few hours.
The link with the Nimrods was that the 203 Sqn line was to the left hand side of the runway when viewed from the approach. As the nosewheel left the Boeing, it bounced majestically down the runway narrowly missing the line of parked aircraft. One observer said it actually bounced between 2 Nimrods before heading for the bundu. Luckily the 720 stayed on the runway after landing so the carnage of hitting a parked Nimrod was avoided.
I may even have a news clip of the incident somewhere in the boxes.
Apologies because its a very grainy, cropped image but if you look closely you can just see the Nimrods in the background lined up parallel to the runway.
