Catalina PH-PBY has suffered a nose wheel up landing at Lelystad. Apparently no injuries amongst the 4 crew and 14 passengers. Aircraft doesn't appear to have suffered too much damage. Sources in Dutch.

Vliegtuig met neus op baan geland op Lelystad|Binnenland| Telegraaf.nl

Historisch vliegtuig Catalina maakt noodlanding op Lelystad Airport - Nieuws

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=198363

This may be a stupid question but why didn't they land on water? Could they not raise their gear?

I was wondering that too. Wheels up, land on water, recover aircraft with a dolly.

That said, it was an excellent landing though, and the above is in no way to be taken as criticism of the pilot. I wasn't there, so won't condemn them for their actions.

Apparently the nose wheel doors may have been partly opened - as you may recall, a passenger died when the old Plane Sailing Catalina sank in The Solent while landing in 2000 - the doors failed and the inrush of water ruptured a bulkhead.

An excellent landing indeed and hopefully minimal damage.

Yes, Treadigraph, I remember that one. Fourteen pax on board may have had an influence on the decision to land at Lelystad.

Well given the weather it was almost a water landing :ok:

Treadigraph,

2 people died in the Catalina crash in the Solent, the Mayor of Southampton and an airline worker from Eastleigh airport.

The Catalina has 2 pins that lock the front of the nose gear doors in place through a bulkhead. Those used as regular water bombers were often modified to have a 'flag' window that would be visible to the crew as a final check that the door pins were in place before operating on water. The original Plane Sailing one was never a water bomber so did not have this mod.

A water landing with possibly unsecure nose gears doors would not be a good idea.

In the Southampton accident, IIRC the root cause was the corrosion failure of one of the two torque tubes that rotate to open/close the nose wheel doors. Corrosion was caused by an unauthorised mod made back in the mists of time, viz a cork placed in the end of the tube, ostensibly to prevent the ingress of water, but additionally preventing its egress.

SD

My dad was part of the crew on that flight, fortunately got out