All 89 passengers and crew have emerged unscathed from a Myanmar National Airlines flight that was forced to land without its nose gear extended.
The incident occurred on Sunday, May 12, when pilots on flight UB 103 from Yangon were unable to lower the nose gear as the Embraer E190 XY-AGQ approached Mandalay.
The flight crew conducted two low approaches for air traffic controllers in the tower to check the nose gear. When told the nose gear had not extended, the pilots entered a hold to burn fuel before conducting a nose up landing.
As The Aviation Herald reported:
“The crew worked the related checklists, attempted an alternate gear extension, which also could not extend the nose gear.
“A low approach confirmed the nose gear was still not extended. The crew prepared for a nose gear up landing and landed on Mandalay’s runway 17, keeping the nose up as long as practicable, bringing the aircraft to a halt on the runway on both main gear struts and the nose of the aircraft.
“Smoke entered the cabin after the nose touched down. The aircraft was evacuated via slides. There were no injuries, the aircraft sustained substantial damage.”
VIDEO: Myanmar National Airlines flight UB103 lands without its nose gear extended, from the Let’s Save Myanmar YouTube channel.
Myanmar National Airlines said in a statement on its Facebook page Captain Myat Moe Aung, First Officer Myo Thiha Aung and First Officer Kaung Set Lwin were in the flight deck of flight UB 103. There were also four cabin crew operating the flight.
The statement said the nose landing gear was “malfunctioning and couldn’t be activated”.
“The Captain made RNAV approach RW17 to MDL, but when the landing gear was activated by EICAS message, it turned out the nose landing gear was malfunctioning and couldn’t be activated,” the statement said.
“The Captain then activated the emergency landing gear down procedure, but it was still not working. He did two flight paths in front of ATC to check whether the nose landing gear was down or not.”
“Then the Captain followed emergency procedures and did the fuel burn out to reduce the landing weight.”
“Myanmar National Airlines would like to express our deepest appreciation to all the passengers onboard and our crews.
“We will continue to strive to keep all UB flights on higher safety standards and to offer safe journeys to our passengers.” [vc_gallery interval=”0″ images=”73339,73342,73344″ img_size=”750×420″ title=”Crews try to move the Embraer E190 (Images from Myanmar National Airlines)”]
