Heathrow plane smashed into tarmac injuring co-pilot and ground crew after fault with landing gear

On June 18, 2021, a cargo plane was set to fly from London Heathrow to Frankfurt in Germany when an issue with the landing gear was noted by pilots. While the pilots were preflighting the plane, a maintenance team took a look at the front landing gear and tried to fix the issue. They determined that fixes to the landing gear could happen at a later time, and as long as the doors for the landing gear worked, the flight could continue. In order to prevent the landing gear from retracting when the landing gear lever was in the ‘up’ position, downlock pins were placed on the landing gear. When the lead engineer placed the landing gear lever in the ‘up’ position, the landing gear retracted causing major damage to the front of the plane and the pilots sustained minor injuries. After investigation, they found that the downlock pins were placed in the wrong hole leading to the nose landing gear retracting. This raised concerns about the aircrafts design, as there were two holes very close to each other which made it more likely the pins could be placed in the wrong hole. “The conclusion in the report suggests that if there had been more attention paid to health and safety risks associated with the design of the downlock assembly, the accident could have been avoided.” (Bennett, 2023) 

The reason I chose this article is because maintenance is a very important part of flying, and even the smallest mistake can lead to an accident. I thought it was also very interesting how all of this happened because the downlock pin was placed in the wrong hole. There was also a Service Bulletin and a Airworthiness Directive that was out and would have prevented this accident, but it had not been completed on this plane because there was a three year timeframe to get it done. 

Reference:

​​Bennett, R. (2023, January 19). Heathrow plane smashed into tarmac after fault with landing gear. MyLondon. Retrieved January 23, 2023, from https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/heathrow-plane-smashed-tarmac-injuring-26017556