Ask The Pilot

[OZDUCK]

I just saw on FR25 that a C-40 Clipper of the US Navy landed at Cocos Island (departed from Darwin).

Any clues why the US Navy would do such a run?

An uninformed suggestion would be that it is on its way to the secretive Diego Garcia base. Darwin to Cocos 3,680 km and Cocos to Diego Garcia 2,700 km. Seems like a nice refueling spot with no unwelcome eyes around.

 

[markis10]

That aircraft originated in Japan and tracked via Guam to DRW, likely Admiral Stephen Koehler the current PACFLT commander, maybe picked up some pax in DRW ex weekend Shangri-La junket in SIN

 

[exLXCXFF]

An uninformed suggestion would be that it is on its way to the secretive Diego Garcia base.

That is likely spot on - the aircraft is currently exactly in that vicinity.

How is jet fuel getting to Cocos / Christmas for refilling? Is there a cargo ship for that specifically?

 

[OZDUCK]

Viva Energy Aust. Supply petrol, diesel and jet fuel to Cocos and from what I can see it comes via ship from Fremantle.

 

[JessicaTam]

What do you talk about with the person wearing headphones walking next to the tug as you are being pushed back?

 

[jb747]

Just a few standard comments, re the clearance to push/start, and any instructions from ATC. Brakes off/on. Starting engine x,y,z. Clearance to disconnect.

 

[OZDUCK]

Lufthansa have a bent very new B787 at Frankfurt currently. The front gear 'collapsed' at the gate while the airbridge and various service equipment was attached. Any idea what could have gone badly enough wrong to cause the front undercarriage to fail/retract? The ground worker was very lucky to just be missed by the falling nose but apparently some crew were onboard and there were injuries.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2062510866981924920

 

[Major]

Also from AVH

The Aviation Herald

Aviation Herald - News, Incidents and Accidents in Aviation

avherald.com

 

[jb747]

You just need to press the landing gear override button, and then move the gear handle up. If there is hydraulic pressure, the gear doors will open, and it will attempt to retract. The main gear almost certainly won’t move, as it is dragging the gear at 90º to the tyres (and because there’s normally some form of positioning required for the gear truck). The nose gear doesn’t have anything restraining it, as the retraction is in the same plane as the tyre rotation. There are maintenance procedures that require this but the gear pins should be in place to stop any result, other than the doors opening. So, either the NG pin wasn’t installed, or someone had put it in the wrong hole (which apparently was also done by BA).

 

[Daver6]

You just need to press the landing gear override button, and then move the gear handle up. If there is hydraulic pressure, the gear doors will open, and it will attempt to retract. The main gear almost certainly won’t move, as it is dragging the gear at 90º to the tyres (and because there’s normally some form of positioning required for the gear truck). The nose gear doesn’t have anything restraining it, as the retraction is in the same plane as the tyre rotation. There are maintenance procedures that require this but the gear pins should be in place to stop any result, other than the doors opening. So, either the NG pin wasn’t installed, or someone had put it in the wrong hole (which apparently was also done by BA).

In what circumstances would you want/need to retract the landing gear when it's bearing weight?

 

[jb747]

In what circumstances would you want/need to retract the landing gear when it's bearing weight?

As a pilot, I really can’t think of any, nor can I recall ever seeing in the sim.

 

[NM]

As a pilot, I really can’t think of any, nor can I recall ever seeing in the sim.

Could it possibly have been that the engineers wanted to open the gear doors to inspect/check something inside, and assumed the pins were in place to stop the actual gear retraction? Hence raising the gear lever was assumed to only open the doors and not actually retract the gear as well? The ground person standing next to the nose gear seems to be watching it carefully at the time and is not overly surprised/shaken by the result - almost an "oops" moment for him.

 

[Quickstatus]

There has now been 3 inadvertent nose gear retractions on the B787 while on the ground.
KE
BA
LH

The root cause for the first 2 was known. The manually inserted down-lock pin to prevent inadvertent nose gear retraction was incorrectly inserted into an adjacent similar looking hole. . The fix - to permanently block off that adjacent hole was promulgated by Boeing in 2018 after the first nosegear incident. The BA nose gear incident reported in the above AAIB report link occurred in 2021. BA did not do the fix because it was within the 36months grace period to effect the fix.

I would have thought that as because the LH aircraft was only a few months old that the fix would have been done on the manufacturing line. Assuming that is true and it is impossible to inserts the downlock pin incorrectly, possibly something else caused the inadvertent nosegear retraction.