Monday, November 20, 2017

Piper PA-30 Twin Comanche, N7942Y: Incident occurred November 20, 2017 at St. Mary's County Regional Airport (2W6), Leonardtown, Maryland

Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; Washington, District of Columbia

Aircraft landed gear up.

Atlantic Aero Marine Inc

Date: 20-NOV-17
Time: 21:30:00Z
Regis#: N7942Y
Aircraft Make: PIPER
Aircraft Model: PA30
Event Type: INCIDENT
Highest Injury: NONE
Aircraft Missing: No
Damage: UNKNOWN
Activity: UNKNOWN
Flight Phase: LANDING (LDG)
City: LEONARDTOWN
State: MARYLAND






A pilot successfully landed a small plane with defective landing gear at a Maryland airport Monday afternoon.

The plane circled St. Mary's County Regional Airport for more than 90 minutes before executing the emergency landing on its belly, which Chopper4 captured on camera.

A man could be seen getting out of the plane without issue after it stopped on a runway.

St. Mary's County Fire and Rescue was on hand for the landing.

A crane was used to remove the plane from the runway. 

St. Mary's County Regional Airport is a small airport in southern Maryland.

Story and raw video ➤ https://www.nbcwashington.com

7 comments:

  1. Looks like the pilot shut down the engines with the props at 3 & 9 O'clock to minimize damage. Fine job of piloting as this old bird should fly again! These are the stories that I like to read about on this site.

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  2. So WHY didn't he use the "Emergency landing gear extension" system?

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  3. I'm sure he tried it. It don't always work if the gear is jammed.

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  4. Anonymous wrote:
    > So WHY didn't he use the "Emergency landing gear extension" system?

    Answer: he did. When the gear did not extend normally, the pilot proceeded to use the emergency gear extension. When the problem is something common (such as a failure of the gear switch, or the electrical motor that moves the gear up and down, or the transmission attached to that motor) this would solve the problem.

    However, in this case the problem with the gear was not an electric motor that wouldn't work - it was a cracked part in the landing gear. Specifically, the trunnion on the right main landing gear physically broke at the rear attach point.

    When there is a broken part in the gear itself, the pilot can try to extend the gear, but it just jams halfway down. I actually had a similar experience in a Comanche - a broken part (different part than this case) meant that the gear could not go down even with emergency extension.

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  5. I've serviced many Comanches since 1972. The gear has 400 pound pull Bungeee's that assist the in the retraction and extension cycles. I replace them at every second annual. Also I've found the retract bell crank on the main gear on the Comanchee is prone to cracking.

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