Air Contractors A300 veered off runway at Bratislava
 

An Air Contractors Airbus A300 flying for DHL veered off the runway at Bratislava Airport yesterday, after the nose gear collapsed.

The gear collapsed during roll out after touch down, apparently at relatively low speed. The crew had not reported any problems prior to landing. The aircraft came to stop around 1800 meters past runway threshold with all gear and the nose on soft ground.

No injuries.



[ AvHerald has already reported Metar, and the tail wind has been identified as the root cause for both metal fatigue and hydraulic failure :}

Some media report this as "radioactive plane crashed" :oh:, as there apparently was some low-level radioactive freight on board. Maybe one of the crew had a wristwatch with some luminous tritium on the dial. ]

There is a good link and there are photos
Accident: Air Contractors A30B at Bratislava on Nov 16th 2012, nose gear collapse on landing, runway excursion

Regarding radioactive materials - part of the freight was medical equipment for treating cancer and isotopes used for medical diagnostics. Nothing to worry about.

If I noticed correctly yesterday TV news the a/c is still there sitting as duck and blocking one of the runways.

Six days on, and it hasn't been moved ?

You're kidding, I hope.

Pali, I hope you're joking. This medical radio active stuff can be seriously dangerous!!

Goiânia accident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

F14, what an unbelievable story! Just when you think things couldn't get worse, they did. :eek:

I don't think, though, that those circumstances would be applicable here.

As far I know all cargo is intact, material is not dangerous just a standard X-ray stuff.

http://img.sk.prg.cmestatic.com/medi...12/2382576.jpg

And yes, aircraft should be removed end of this week.

Stupid...
 

I'm probably missing something as I'm, a bit thick but: Is this an operator working on behalf of someone else, working on behalf of someone else?

Hi dwshimoda

Don't put your self down, (abit thick) bad think to say about your self.

Probably what the deal is.

Air Contractors ACMI company, contract one of their own aircraft with crew maintenance and insurance to EAT.

EAT is a DHL owned company (or used to be) think it stands for European Air Transport, they fly DHL cargo.

Would be interesting to know if that was an ex EAT A300 b4 there was one that when it taxied used to make a squeeking and groaning noise from where the nose leg connects to the fuse, sounded more like a boat than a plane.

The squeeking,groaning on B4 NLG's was a known problem,not necessarily a defect - there was a SIL from Airbus,air between PTFE seals I think ?

ACL operate the B4's for EAT which is separate company but works for DHL. When EAT moved its AOC to Germany the German CAA wouldn't take the B4's on to the German reg so they went to the Irish reg hence operated by ACL. There is a tie up somewhere between ACL, DHL and EAT, someone else may be better able to explain that one than me.

DHL has, historically, always been pretty tight with ACL. The B4's were actually operated by ACL originally, then transferred to EAT (BRU) before coming full circle and going back to ACL after EAT moved to LEJ and became EAT GmbH.

EAT, as well as DHK, is a wholly owned subsidiary of DHL Express and are the main providers of lift for DHL intra Europe. There are around 60 airlines in total providing lift for DHL around the world.

If you think that's a bit of a mess, you should see the "ownership plague" inside the B4.s. It goes something like "owned by (some bank, usually in the Caribbean), sub-leased to someone else, sub-sub leased to someone else again and operated by ACL. Tax dodging? Nah, why would anyone think that!