BA 320/19 incident at MAN 19/10/16

[Kengineer-130]

Just taxied past a BA 320/19 on the taxi way at Manchester, lots of emergency vehicles & people looking down #1 intake, plus the nosewheels appear to be at 90 degrees to the centerline of the A/C, maybe a gear failure like the JetBlue aircraft of a few years ago?

[Shed-on-a-Pole]

Aircraft involved is A319 G-EUPM which landed as SHT2L at 08:00Z. Pax disembarked in situ. According to reports, AAIB involved. MAN still landing on 23L with backtracking almost three hours later.

[foxmoth]

Interesting that the nosewheel tyres both looked intact, I would have expected them to be shredded if they landed like that!

[fantom]

I seem to recall that the (well-known) failure was the result of a problem during overhaul of the nose gear or the steering mechanism.

[Kengineer-130]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/RWD_cossie_wil/E878CD3D-4C45-4156-A2D3-CC3A7F55D32C.png (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/RWD_cossie_wil/media/E878CD3D-4C45-4156-A2D3-CC3A7F55D32C.png.html)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/RWD_cossie_wil/599C40BE-3153-4FEF-8B1C-214CA1F8DBFA.png (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/RWD_cossie_wil/media/599C40BE-3153-4FEF-8B1C-214CA1F8DBFA.png.html)

[JEM60]

Looks to me [not airline pilot] that the landing was normal and that a failure occurred AFTER leaving the runway. The aircraft appears to be on a taxi-way, and it certainly didn't land on that, and wouldn't have taxi-ed in that condition.

[Heathrow Harry]

Pretty sure this has happened a few times before - even an old Pprune thread

http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/487929-airbus-a320-nosewheel-turned-90-degrees-17-times.html

and Wikipedia in 2005 after A Jet Blue incident:-

Expert opinion expressed was that, despite the drama and live worldwide coverage, there was little real danger to the passengers or crew of Flight 292. The A320, like all modern airliners, is engineered to tolerate certain failures, and, if necessary, can be landed without the nose gear at all.

A similar incident with an A320 occurred on an America West Airlines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_West_Airlines) flight in February 1999 in Columbus, Ohio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus,_Ohio) (Flight 2811).The National Transportation Safety Board (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Transportation_Safety_Board) (NTSB) found the cause was a failure of the external o-rings in the nose landing gear steering module.[5] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_Flight_292#cite_note-msnbc.msn.com-5) That plane also landed safely.

The media reported that this was at least the seventh occurrence of an Airbus A320 series aircraft touching down with the landing gear locked ninety degrees out of position, and one of at least sixty-seven "nose wheel failures" on A319, A320 and A321 aircraft worldwide since 1989. Earlier incidents included another JetBlue flight bound for New York City (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City), a United Airlines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines) flight into Chicago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago), and an America West (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_West) flight into Columbus, Ohio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus,_Ohio). While some incidents were traced to faulty maintenance and denied as a design flaw by Airbus Industries, the manufacturer had issued maintenance advisories to A320 owners which were later mandated as Airworthiness Directives (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airworthiness_Directive) by American and French aviation authorities.[14] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_Flight_292#cite_note-ntsb.gov-14) Messier-Dowty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier-Dowty), which manufactures nose gear assemblies for the A320, stated in an NTSB report in 2004 that part of the gear had been redesigned to prevent future problems, but at the time the redesign was awaiting approval.[15] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_Flight_292#cite_note-15) Mechanics familiar with this common fault usually replace or re-program the Brake Steering Control Unit (BSCU) computer.
The NTSB report says that worn-out seals were to blame for the malfunction, and that the BSCU system contributed to the problem. The NTSB reported that Airbus had since upgraded the system to take care of the problem.

Following the incident, the aircraft was repaired and returned to service still bearing the name "Canyon Blue." The flight route designation for JetBlue's flights from Burbank to New York was changed from 292 to 358 (the other direction became 350).

[tubby linton]

The BSCU does a self test once the gear is selected down and the steering was being tested up to fifty times per approach. Following numerous incidents the BSCU were meant to be modified to greatly reduce the testing and resultant wear.

[Kengineer-130]

Not a great design really, at the very least should fail safe & in the straight ahead position, the cams in the NLG should self centre the nosewheel at full extension, then directonal control can be maintained by differential braking/rudder.

[CCGE29]

AAIB are involved, visited the AVP to see what was happening and at the nose of the a/c was a guy with 'AAIB' written on the back of his hi-viz.

[TURIN]

Not a great design really, at the very least should fail safe & in the straight ahead position, the cams in the NLG should self centre the nosewheel at full extension, then directonal control can be maintained by differential braking/rudder.

At full extension, weight off, the cams do self centre the leg. However in this instance we are not looking at the cams that have caused previous failures.

Different failure mode. I won't go in to details but the whole fleet had a very specific inspection to be performed before first flight on Thursday morning.

[Yankee Whisky]

The nosewheel is at an angle because the aircraft on exiting the RW was in the process of turning right to place the nosewheel on the center line .

[Kengineer-130]

Does the inspection affect the 330/40 family? Not heard of this failure on the widebody fleet.

The point I was making is that with a hardover nosewheel, maybe it would be prudent to design in a shutoff/hydraulic relief so that at least it can castor should it experience a failure as seen a number of times in the 320 family! ( I realize that it's an old design & will probably never be changed, just mitigated with extra inspections/ overhauls etc)

[ACMS]

Hydraulic failure, loss of Nosewheel steering, using differential braking trying to get off the runway but didn't succeed long enough and nosewheel turned 90 deg when they came to a stop?????

Could that be what happened??

Because if it landed 90 deg offset you can rest assured it would have blown out down to the rims