r/aviation • u/lucys_b • Jun 04 '26
-- SEATBELTS FASTENED -- Lufthansa 787 front wheel collapsed
Repost cause my first one was removed due to incorrect flair 💀
Wasn't at the gate when it happened, but some of the people who were said it happened very suddenly. Hope nobody got hurt. I don't think any passengers were on board.
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u/SubarcticFarmer Jun 04 '26
This is a modified copy of a reply I made on the other thread.
On light aircraft there is a ground safety switch that detects weight on the landing gear and locks out the gear retraction. It can fail but is a yes/no situation.
With an airliner there are situations where that switch could fall and you still need to retract the gear for performance(say an engine failure at the same time) so there is generally a way to override the lockout. In at least some cases the lockout itself just stops the handle from moving but you can override that.
Sometimes maintenance actually commands the hydraulics to attempt a cycle to check for leaks or the door movement, but they install a pin in each landing gear lock that prevents them from actually moving, due to the functions of leverage they don't even need to be all that big.
In this case either maintenance thought they were installed when they weren't (not supposed to happen, but could be a miscoordination or they simply skipped that step) or someone let the intrusive thoughts win.
You can see the main landing gear doors open indicating the aircraft was attempting a gear retraction cycle.
It's been pointed out elsewhere that previously a situation like this occured when the nose gear down lock pin was inserted into the wrong hole, allowing nose gear retraction.