PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Flybe Dash 8 400 nosegear failure at Belfast airport
Old 12th Nov 2017, 16:01
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Uplinker
 
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: UK
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The definition of "crash" in my Collins dictionary is:

5. to cause (an aircraft) to land violently resulting in severe damage or (of an aircraft) to land in this way.
Neither part of that definition even remotely describes how the Flybe Dash in question landed at Belfast, and this is why the use of the term "crash landing" to describe this incident is inaccurate (and sensationalist).

Yes, the emergency services would have been called and asked to attend the landing - as a perfectly sensible safety precaution. Also, yes the runway would have been blocked until a) The pilots and fire crews determined that the aircraft and its occupants were safe, and b) A means was found to move the aircraft from the runway.

So, yes the incident might have been newsworthy but it was not a "crash landing" because there was no crash. Do you say you crashed your car when you scrape the side or the alloys against a post when driving out of the supermarket car park?.

Perhaps "abnormal landing" would convey better a situation like this where an aircraft safely alighted on a runway with a high degree of control, but nevertheless an abnormal configuration, such as having no nose-wheel deployed.
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