Q400 Bombardier loses wheel on landing
 

Heading into Buffalo, link with video:

Wheel flies off Canuck plane | World | News | Toronto Sun

The Q400 is certainly building a reputation with regards its landing gear. This incident however, seems more likely (IMHO) to be a maintenance issue than a design flaw or 'pilot error' as mentioned in the video.

Final nail in the coffin for Colgan?

So the passenger knew about the problem on take-off, was ready with his video camera to film it, and sell it to the media - BUT NO-ONE TOLD THE CREW! :mad:

the pilot only knew about the problem taxiing in, when the hydraulic pressure failed! :suspect:

No wonder he didn't want to be identified! :ugh:

Whatever happened to 'passengers are to ensure all electronic devices are turned off for take off and landing' ?

Looked like a simple hub failure to me.

Nice touchdown though.

Try not living up to your monicker Gobonastick,
Whilst I'm not condoning the passenger(s) for not informing the crew, some passengers observed flames coming from the wheel assembly.
If the crew were made aware of this OBSERVATION, they have options that they could have exercised.
I don't have to be technical qualified to make valid observations, be it as a pilot or SLF

But do we know that the crew were NOT made aware of pax observations?

SLF playing their part
 

Sadly, Kegworth springs to mind...if a passenger ( or for that matter, cabin crew ) had spoken up, " No, not that engine on fire, the other one " a tragedy may have been avoided.

I'm SLF on airliners, but on light aircraft as a photographer try to be useful rather than ' sitting there '.

So far I've spotted asymetrically loaded fuel tanks, 2 out of 3 greens before take off and a near head-on with a Chinook, + a drugged pilot falling unconcious among other fun times, and that was mostly with very experienced ex-services pilots ( Not Dunsfold though, in case anyone recognises me ); no-one's perfect 100% of the time, and I'm sure any sensible pilot would prefer people to speak up; better a live idiot than a quiet member of the deceased, and it's not only my life to consider !

A simular situation happend to a -300 a few years back, ableit on takeoff. If I remember correctly, either lack of or incorrect type of grease on the wheel bearings was the culprit.

Listening to PAX-
 

or just a seized brake/wheel bearing causing the cotter pin to fail, regardless had this happen twice in 5k hours, that's why we have two wheels

A MSNBC deceptive video of the incident
 

MSNBC should re-edit their tape of this incident. They begin with the Denmark RT LG collapse, show last Tuesday's Buffalo one with one wheel coming off, back to Denmark again, then finish with flaming footage of Buffalo.

Its probably poor journalism that MSNBC does not identify the Denmark RT LG collapse thus leading one to believe that was part of the last Tuesday's Buffalo LG wheel incident. "Came in for a landing and lost one of its right wheels" (showing the Denmark LG collapse in the background).

msnbc.com Video Player

The above is why I deeply appreciate pprune for its well informed opinions (yes I know there are exceptions).

Hate to admit it, but it seems the Q400 still has problems with its main landing gear... one after the other... :E

powerstall

you're full of s***

Are you of an engineering background? Perhaps you specialise in the landing gear system of the Q400?

So SAS has a major incident years and years ago. And it got sorted out (by FlyBe I seem to recall)

The landing gear system on board that Q400 is sound. Clearly what we are looking at here in terms of this video is a mix or poor maintenance and possibly poor observation during a walkround.

This being the second incident (the first being the horrific landing by the SAS which, was, hands up, very unpleasant) in the last what couple of years? And yet you still claim the landing gear on this airframe is dubious? How many take off's and landings in total do you think the Q400 collective has done in the last 5 years...?

please....

Checkboard says...

the pilot only knew about the problem taxiing in, when the hydraulic pressure failed! http://static.pprune.org/images/smilies/cwm13.gif

No wonder he didn't want to be identified! :ugh:

What else would he have noticed??? The wheel came off, he wouldn't have known, first indication would be hydraulic pressure loss when the brake unit departed severing the hose.

I believe you've quoted Checkboard out of context. The "he" who didn't want to be recognized is the pax in the (missing) first sentence of his post, who knew enough that something was wrong that he had his camera ready and focused on the wheel...but hadn't told anyone else, it seems.

Unlike the majority of nice big shiny jets, the average Q400 has to undertake 8-10 lanings per day. Often into regional airfields with shorter runways and certainly in my part of the world into storms, strong cross winds and driving rain (actually the wet bit makes for smoother landings so no coplaints there).

The gear takes a pounding on most of those landings, so there is no doubt it is man enough for the job. That certain publicised mantenance failures and the odd mechanical issue has arisen is not surprising. The Q400 fleet is clocking up sectors as fast as anything else out there, and the average 4-5 yerar old Q400 will have done more landings than a 20 year old 747 by now.

It's all relative. Me, I have faith in them, and I have to trust them on a daily basis. The Q400 is a damn fine aeroplane. It does the job it's built for very well indeed, and is really only hampered by it's need to maintain commonality with the older versions. Shame about that. It really should have been the Dash9, but certification costs would have probably killed it off before they started had that been the case.

A stupid comparison (Q400 > 747). Many 737/Airbus fleets fly as many sectors per day as the Q400 fleets with far less drama. Can't remember the last time a 737 wheel departed the airframe, but perhaps my recall isn't perfect...

I have no confidence in the Q400 whatsoever. Lightly built and under-engineered. Nobody wanted it until flybe ordered them, and for good reason. Everybody saw the issues that SAS had and kept well away - flybe only took it because it was fire-sale cheap.

Hated flying on it. Don't have to any more, than god.

Folks, this is what happens when we don't turn off our portable electronic devices.














(Shamlessly stolen from another website, tip o' the hat to UnstableAviator :ok:)

Remoak, you might not recall the last time a wheel departed a 737 axle, but I do remember a southwest 737 landing with it's rh gear in flames...this week. Personally, I see a pretty smooth turnaround of between 50 and 70 q400s a day, of which I am rarely called to. The landing gear was always suitable for the dash, it's just required fine tuning with a course of modification programmes. I have every faith in this aircaft, and still happily fly on it

Obviously this type of aircraft does not want to go to Buffalo.
Alt3