posted on Apr, 28 2009 @ 12:51 PM
reply to post by antar
Well....I looked at just the ones in the Continental United States.
Two of them were scheduled commercial flights. The Cape Air Cessna 402 in Nantucket (ACK) and the Continental B757-300 in Newark (EWR).
The Cessna is really just a General Aviation airplane in FAR Part 135 Air Taxi operations. Landing gear collapse can be from mechanical failure, or a
hard landing with an extreme side-load (such in a strong cross wind). I think those Cape Air guys are good pilots, so I'll bet on mechanical
failure.
The B757 had an engine fire warning AND a blown tire. It did not indicate whether it was a nose gear tire, or main. A shredded nose tire 'could'
be a factor, but not always. Could be coincidence. An engine fire warning can be A) an actual fire (rare), B) a false alarm due to a failure in the
system or C) a 'bleed' leak. (That is the hot air that is 'bled' from the eingine to operate the pneumatic systems).
An engine fire warning is practiced in the simulator all the time, the steps in the check-list walk us through it. Short story, when the throttle is
retarded, if the warning extinguishes, and the engine instruments are normal, then it is a hot air leak. If the warning remains, then the engine is
shut down and the fire extinguishers are fired. (Happened to me some years ago. It was a hot air leak. Weather was bad in EWR, where we had just
taken off, so I took us to Washington Dulles as an alternate).
As to the others, most looked like pilot errors of one form or another. two gear up landings...happens very often. People forget to put the gear
down. Landing accidents are very common, and usually are pilot-related.
edit=I checked the Continental flight on Flight Aware for the 26th. The flight 348 was EWR-SFO. The first airplane was airborne for just about 20
minutes, they air-returned to EWR. Looks like the airline found another airplane and they had transferred the passengers and baggage, and departed.
It arrived SFO about three hours late.
[edit on 4/28/0909 by weedwhacker]