The TNT B737 EMA/Birmingham incident thread
 

Does anyone know what is going on at BHX. NOTAM'd closed until 2359 with flights being diverted:confused:

Thanks

Aircraft landed with undercarriage problems, believed right side main gear retracted. Rwy covered in foam plus disabled acft. Awaiting AIB clearance to move it.

Jolly quick (but pessimistic?) NOTAM.

Many thanks for info. Any idea what a/c type involved?

OO-TNB STN-EDI

J01

Airport are saying it was the Liege - Stan sector. Would make sense for a div to Brum.

but going to stan anyway
 

I am confuxed.....if stan was dest and closed, and I expect Lut closed too...and now B Ham closed toooooo...

Bumz

Glad it got down safely.

OOI in the UK would TNT pay compensation to BHX and the operators for all the inconvenience and cost.

Maybe BHX should have a nother runway.

Can any of their smaller operators use CVT or is it EMA ?

Stansted operating reduced distances so better not land there with any doubts about your ability to stop before the JCB overrun arrestor.

Luton night closures, should be open again by now but its only scheduled to open about 6am local and is often later than this as they landed Brum at 0606 it makes sense.

As a matter of interest, don't cargo a/c have slides?

A/C was actually OO-TND LGE-STN-EDI

J01

Some like the A300 do, others - the 757 for instance dont. Just depends on the mod. The advantage of slides is large numbers of people can quickly get down them. Freighters are only have a few seats and for the smaller ones it is practical to put "descent assistance" think death slide meets car seat belt meets parachute trainer - grab one and step out the door.

Not last week: I operated into STN at about 3z and out again 4 ish its just shorter than normal, Luton is deffo closed nights and thus there is always a chance it wont re-open on time or that when it does the ILS is U/S or similar. So sensible planning would use somewhere else as an alternate, EMA which is a TNT gateway and was probably their "commercial" alternate was giving visibility of less than a couple of KM so Brum is the obvious choice. Though from a disruption point of view Gatwick might be better as they could have still operated from their spare runway/taxiway while the 737 was recovered. Perhaps there is an argument for a similar facility in the midlands.

Wouldn't a military field such as Brize or Fairford have been more suited for this particular problem as they have long runways?

Birmingham & TNT
 

This is probably whey they went elsewhere so as not to screw up their own schedules ;)

Oh but they did
 

Rumour has it that they did pay a brief visit to EMA prior to BHX but unfortunately left some little bits there that make landing all that much easier.

The reduced distances;
REDUCED DECLARED DISTANCES, RWY 15 AVBL FOR DEPS ONLY. RWY 15 TORA 1650M TODA 1775M ASDA 1650M LDA NIL. DEP ACFT REQUIRED TO BACKTRACK RWY 15 VIA HOLDS E1 OR T1. 15 JUN 07:46 UNTIL 15 JUN 15:00 ESTIMATED

would their choice of landing location have had anything to do with the RFF level available, and the ability or otherwise to foam the runway?

Seeing the info about reduced take-off distances, I'm a little confused as to where exactly the a/c came to rest. Looking at the photo, I thought it was the intersection of 15/33 with 06/24. Or is it opposite K1?

Handsfree, your post seems to have been overlooked.

I have also heard that a part or all of the RIGHT gear was in East Midlands, with the rest of the aircraft on the runway in Birmingham.

Seems absurd. I assume the aircraft was planned to EMA, being a TNT base.

We await further details with some interest.

JMC-man

edited by JMC-man due not looking before typing

Wouldn't be suprised if they find a chock from point of departure in the gear bay - it's happened before with 737s!

If you look at the pictures kindly provided you will see that the left gear definitely made it to BHX - the right gear seems to be at fault.

rts

According to Central News they couldn't land at STN due to fog, so it diverted to EMA but couldn't land there for some reason not specified but realised that they had a probelm with the gear, so diverted to BHX.

TND has a slide front right but not front left, twenty year old ex US Airways.

Aircraft going from LGG-STN, div to EMA when the gear was lowered it seemed that part of the right gear fell off, it was diverted to BHX because the possibility that part of the gear was on the runway and also the wx.

Well done to the crew for keeping it on the runway:ok:

Bits at EMA
 

I'm led to believe that the aircraft overshot EMA but left a wheel on the runway - along with minor damage to the runway surface ??? Good trick if you can do it.

If true we could have ended up with STN, LTN, BHX and EMA all closed for various reasons, not a good day to carry min fuel :eek:

Our 737-300 freighter is fitted with slide.

I marvel that 'they' manage to have both STN and LTN carrying out runway work over the same months. You would have thought a little planning, communication and forethought might have been deployed to avoid this.

I imagine that a flight ecountering multiple diversions and a gear problem resulting in bending the airframe would be dauntingly stressful. Whatever the outcome I hope the crew enjoy a beer and a good nights sleep tonight.

Cheers

WWW

Got this of a belgium aviation forum (Luchtzak.be)

A/c was due for landing at EMA. During CatIII approach, autopilot was disengaged on short final. A/c slammed into runway, thereby ripping off RH LDG. The gear then slammed into the inboard flaps and aft fuselage.
Go-around initiated and after being airborne again, crew requested emergency landing at BHX due to weather conditions.


Neil

I am aware that Geneva has the facility:
Foam laying vehicle (see "Titan" vehicle at page 21)
MD-87 EC-GRL Iberia, March 20th, 1999
Not sure about Zurich.

As far as I know, another European airport with foam laying capability is Athens:
Foam laying vehicle
B737-200 SX-BCF Olympic, September 20th, 1999

Runway foaming is discouraged on airports which are not specifically equipped. This FAA CERTALERT explains why (see paragraph 3).
http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraff...a/cert0204.rtf

I thought a few Military airfields are designated MEDA and can foam, Waddington for instance.

Whilst these things do not happen often - such incidents do cause large amounts of chaos which affect many thousands of people. Someone I flew with some time ago speculated whether somewhere such as Manston could be designated as a Master Diversion Airfield (as it once was in its RAF days) -
fully equipped for diversions for aircraft with technical problems which could affect runway use for some considerable time. Bearing in mind Manston's position the cost of such a facility could be borne by UK/France/Belgium/Holland - certainly the runway is long enough and the airfield could continue to be used for normal operations as required subject to its diversion status. OK - its all down to money I know but the simple logic seems sound to me.

Thanks for the respective info guys. Beamer, that's all very well, but under the alleged cicumstances reported during their g/a at EMA, I guess the crew wanted to get down asap. BHX was only a few minutes away.

I forgot to mention the Turkish airports in my previous message. A foam laying truck should be in service at Ankara airport (see specs). I don't know about Istanbul.

Hi

A bit more information... We reported the undercarriage to EMA tower (wheel tyre and strut). They were quite surprised. The undercarriage was in the grass between the Alpha taxiway and the runwa,y about 300m from TDZ - we were actually quite reluctant to tell ATC as we assumed that they knew already - but prudently we did.

The vis was about 350m rwy 27 and 250m rwy 09 at EMA at around 0540z, so any runway inspection may have missed the u/c in the grass. As we sit higher up we got a good view of the u/c.

This had been bugging us all day and on return to EMA for the 4th sector we had a good look at the grass with definite tyre marks in the grass - i.e. indicating that the aircraft had landed left of the runway before going around. The mayday reported gear and flap problems so I'll leave the flap problems to your imagination/knowledge of similar accidents...

Hope this info helps and that I've not made too many assumptions in the circumstances. Good luck to the pilots involved, hope they are ok.

RA

Wonder what crew hours involved, hopefully not a 13 hr night as there may be trouble if so :eek:

Banzai Eagle:

"Hopefully not a 13 hr night as there may be trouble if so".

It is highly unlikely but exactly why would that be a problem then? You are of course totally familiar with Belgian FTLs?

JW411 Surely am, ever heard of the word "tired"???:ugh:

Under Belgium FTLs you can do a 12 hour night + two hours extention:\

Brings back memories of the DC-8 at Stansted that hit another aircraft back in 70`/80`s and diverted to Manchester with a large gash in the wing and part of the flaps missing ( from memory )
When you looked at the damage you wondered how it ever made it to Manchester
Can anyone remember this and fill in the gaps for me

G-I-B

This is going from memory, but my recollection of the DC8 incident is a Philipines registered DC8 doing a low go around at Stansted in early morning fog, clipping the tail of a Flying Tigers DC8, and diverting to Manchester. I think it was around 1982/3. A look round the net didn't find anything, but looking in the DC-8 database I found, I think that the offending aircraft was RP-C830 of Intercontinental. It was certainly a surprise to a young spotter who pedalled out one morning and saw it at Manchester - seems a lifetime ago when you just went on spec, and not because a message on the web had flagged something worth seeing!