SXF runway blocked
 

A Global 5000 of German Air Force returned to SXF after encounting technical malfunction. During landing both wingtips had ground contact.

https://twitter.com/berlinairport?s=09

Airport closure deleted some minutes ago

skadi

"Both wingtips"....


Jeeez

Always check thoroughly and twice when taking an aircraft off maintenance !,:hmm: That said the GAF has a long history of these mishaps with their VIP transport fleet. Maybe time to stop the strict military approach and copy the French system which operates a similar scheme with the ETEC/Esterel squadron since years and which is run to much higher standards ( and also make much more flying hours)

Ah, the glorious German Luftwaffe...

Sorry, could not resist. Our Air Force keeps making headlines with malfunctions, delays and other embarassments. Time and again members of the German government are late for their appointments or stuck somewhere because the old junkyard we call "Flugbereitschaft" just won't fly. Recently, Chancellor Merkel had to fly on a regular line service to attend G-20 in Brasil. (I suspect they put her in Business, but still, normal people around ... :}).

The Bombardier Global 5000 that caused this mess isn't that old, though. Flugbereitschaft operates four aircraft of this type, the first went into service around 2011. According to a Luftwaffe spokesman, the aircraft was in SXF for some maintenance work and scheduled to return to its base in CGN. Because of some yet unspecified malfunction after take-off, the crew decided to return to SXF. On landing, the aircraft "touched ground with both wings", the spokesman is being quoted.

Incident happened around 09:00 local time. The aircraft blocked the runway for a couple of hours. SXF was closed, incoming traffic diverted to TXL. As of this noon, operations in SXF are slowly returning back to normal. Lots of people queuing, though, as it's Easter vacation time in Berlin. The crew is being medically treated, but it is not clear whether anybody has been injured. No passengers on the flight, obviously.

This one is said to have been at Bombardier at Schönefeld for maintenance right before the flight. They had flight control issues especially concerning roll control. Touchdown is said to have happened in the grass on roll out they exited the runway to both sides hitting both wingtips.

Here are two pictures of the landing in SXF. Not much fun obviously...
https://www.aerotelegraph.com/pannen...rt-schoenefeld

This is the kind of "Seconds to disaster". This is a screenshot from www.aerotelegraph.com
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5d55751bdd.png
German Global 5000 Air Force

I find the angle hard to confirm from the photo but it looks like the right wing roll spoilers are working in reverse to the left wing aileron.

Didn't this happen recently to an Embraer somewhere in Spain?

The RH wing spoilerons are UP. The LH wing aileron is I believe DOWN i.e. in agreement with the spoilerons - both are acting to roll the aircraft right wing down.

The LH aileron looks T/E "UP" if you compare to the adjacent flap, but on landing the flaps should be at 30, so the aileron can be quite far TE down and still be "UP" compared to the flap. Looking at the outboard end of the aileron, where the reference wing section is fixed, I think it looks TE down.

YMMV, of course.

Yes, both photos which show spoilers and ailerons are pretty clear: Ailerons and rudder point in the correct direction, spoilers wrong.

But it also means that either the pilots at that point were applying reversed aileron input at that point on purpose, or in this case it was the *spoilers* (all of them) which were hooked up the wrong way (as opposed to the *ailerons* which were messed up in the Embraer case, at least according to the picture that was making the rounds). Which seems even harder to do than the aileron swap. But maybe someone familiar with the setup in the Bombardier knows how the connectors work...

Press conference
 

Video of press conference here:
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschl...-Unglueck.html

Are there any German speakers who can provide the gist of what's being said?

Yikes. AFP quotes Luftwaffe spokesperson: "The jet touched the ground with both wings and a controlled landing was no longer possible."

Pretty clear that a controlled landing was "no longer possible" before both wings touched the ground.

Well done, the crew. Hope they are all OK.

Okay, I try my very best.
Facts from the press conference in Berlin today

The most important facts presented at the press conference:
- Shortly after takeoff (8.40 Local time) the crew reported trouble with the flight controls
- After working the related emergency checklists and procedures the crew decided to return to the airport (SXF)
- During landing recurrent „uncontrollable movements“ and trouble for the crew to controll the aircraft
- 9.07 LT: During emergency landing a/c damaged because both wings came in contact with the ground
- Crew: 2 pilots and 1 female cabin crew
- The captain/commander: 7400 flight hours and licensed flight instructor
- All Crew are being medically checked „as a precaution“ in a Berlin military hospital; obviously "no physical injuries".
- The aircraft was delivered in 2011 and underwent „a routine maintenance“ after 30 months of flight services at „Lufthansa Bombardier Aviation Services“ in SXF. Has been there since March, 20th. It was the first flight since.
- Aircraft is being examined and Flight data recorder will be read out.
- No further information about former or actual damages oft the a/c.
Seems as if the Luftwaffe isn´t glad about the results of the maintenance...

One entertaining fact from the press conference was that the plan was to ferry (crew only) the aircraft to Cologne only to ferry it back to Berlin again the day after in order to bring the German President to Stuttgart.

I bet that the Greens in the German parliament are already climbing the walls on this issue - and I'm struggling to disagree with them.

Is it by the way normal that a fairly new aircraft is in "routine maintenance" for more than three weeks, and that the first flight after such a (long?) stay is a ferry flight?