Q400 loses a gear in Denmark

[Baradium]

There's a video clip on fox news, don't know if this link will work or not.

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/player06.html?091007/091007_fr_world&FOX_Report_Around_the_World&Around%20the%20World&acc&World&-1&News&86&&&exp

Here's a regular article:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296263,00.html

Wonder exactly how accurate the part about the prop through the cabin is...

[Frank N. O.]

On the danish pilots forum they said that the captain had moved the passengers to the front and back so they were clear of the prop incase something happend during landing, and something did happend. The danish media is screaming danger and saying the planetype is riddled with faults and that SAS is slouching on service and that passengers are nervous about flying with it now. The danish FAA, SLV, has said that so far there's no reason to fear it's a type-wide fault but they are investigating, but naturally that will take time, but of course the media isn't waiting. Heck a reporter even started a thread asking questions at the pilots forum, but the first couple of replies was that they weren't qualified to talk about that since they weren't there so he should seek elsewhere.

Edit: I couldn't get the Fox link to play, but there's an embedded video here in this danish link with the video http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article.php/id-8313137.html

Frank

[AirScorp]

My question is this: If the pilots suspected that the gear would collapse, wouldn't it be better if they landed without them altogether?

[Baradium]

My question is this: If the pilots suspected that the gear would collapse, wouldn't it be better if they landed without them altogether?

I suspect they failed to get all three "down and locked" indications.  At that point you don't actually know if the gear is locked or not.   It can be locked and you have a faulty switch that isn't contacting, or a broken wire or any number of things.  From there, they may or may not have been able to tell visually if the gear was locked at not.  At that point the choice is to have a possible non event if it is locked or land gear up and have a definate crash.  Additionally, if it was a hydraulic or other failure they may not have had the option of retracting the gear either.  The emergency backup systems in many aircraft are soley designed to get the gear down, not back up again.

I don't have any experience with the Dash 8 or Q400 (or the Dash 7 for that matter), so I am not sure exactly how their systems work.


Generally if all three *appear* down, you land with them down with the hope that they'll stay that way.   If one of them is obviously not all the way down, you tend to consider doing a full gear up landing (if you can even retract them again).