Gear-up landing Accident Beechcraft C90B King Air VT-JIL,
ASN logo
ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 258998
 
This information is added by users of ASN. Neither ASN nor the Flight Safety Foundation are responsible for the completeness or correctness of this information. If you feel this information is incomplete or incorrect, you can submit corrected information.

Date:Thursday 6 May 2021
Time:21:09
Type:Silhouette image of generic BE9L model; specific model in this crash may look slightly different    
Beechcraft C90B King Air
Owner/operator:Jet Serve Aviation Pvt Ltd
Registration: VT-JIL
MSN: LJ-1573
Fatalities:Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 5
Aircraft damage: Substantial
Category:Accident
Location:Mumbai-Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (BOM/VABB) -   India
Phase: Landing
Nature:Ambulance
Departure airport:Nagpur-Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport (NAG/VANP)
Destination airport:Mumbai-Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (BOM/VABB)
Investigating agency: AAIB India
Confidence Rating: Accident investigation report completed and information captured
Narrative:
The Jet Serve Aviation Beechcraft King Air C90A operated an air ambulance flight from Nagpur to Mumbai, India, with two cockpit crew, a medical patient, one doctor and one medical attendant on board.
The aircraft took off from runway 32 of Nagpur airport at 11:35 UTC. Airport security personnel observed that the wheel detached from the undercarriage as the aircraft got airborne informed ATC. The flight crew did not observe any abnormality during the take-off and were unaware of the event till ATC Nagpur informed them.
The crew requested ATC to confirm the wheel's identity from their company engineering team. Since the crew were midway to Mumbai when the confirmation was received, the crew continued the flight to Mumbai.
ATC Mumbai then facilitated communication with their company Operations/Engineering department to explore all the available possibilities for landing. The crew requested a low altitude flight over runway 27 in Mumbai with the landing gear extended to obtain a ground observation for the missing wheel and establish the full extent of the damage. The low pass was carried out by aircraft at 13:43 UTC at approximately 300ft AGL. Upon confirmation about the missing left-hand wheel, the crew decided to carry out a belly landing at Mumbai Airport.
The crew decided to burn fuel by holding in order to make the aircraft lighter for a belly landing. ATC instructed ARFF to foam the relevant portion of the runway.
The foam carpeting was completed by 15:32 UTC. At approximately 15:34 UTC, runway 27 was made available to the aircraft for landing, and the aircraft was at 10NM on approach.
The aircraft did a gear up landing at 15:40 UTC. The aircraft remained within runway 27 and came to rest at approximately 564 meters from the displaced threshold opposite Taxiway N5. The aircraft halted 8 meters left of the runway centreline facing south. All passengers and crew evacuated the aircraft immediately. No injuries were reported after landing. The patient and the attending doctor were transferred to an ambulance and taken to the hospital. No fire was observed/ reported after landing. However, the aircraft sustained substantial damage to the underbelly and the propellers.


PROBABLE CAUSE OF THE ACCIDENT:
The root cause of the failure of bearing could not be conclusively established.
However, the probable cause for catastrophic failure of the LH main wheel outer bearing may be either contamination or operational overload or a combination of both.
The investigation team could not establish whether a belly landing was a safer option than landing with available gear for the aircraft type. Additionally, till the time of preparation of the report, no input was received from the OEM and other agencies dealing with the certification of the aircraft.
Therefore, the probable cause of LH main landing gear wheel separation was due to the catastrophic failure of the outer bearing on the LH main wheel assembly within the component's service life leading to a belly landing in the absence of prescriptive guidance to the pilots.

Accident investigation:
cover
  
Investigating agency: AAIB India
Report number: 
Status: Investigation completed
Duration: 11 months
Download report: Final report

Sources:

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/air-ambulance-emergency-landing-mumbai-nagpur-hyderabad-1799661-2021-05-06

https://cdn.jetphotos.com/full/5/44641_1498657728.jpg (photo)

Media:

Revision history:

Date/timeContributorUpdates
06-May-2021 17:53 gerard57 Added
06-May-2021 18:01 Captain Adam Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Embed code, Narrative]
06-May-2021 18:40 Aerossurance Updated [Embed code, Narrative]
06-May-2021 22:14 RobertMB Updated [Time, Cn, Operator, Location, Source, Embed code, Narrative]
07-May-2021 08:41 harro Updated [Departure airport, Destination airport]
07-Apr-2022 09:20 harro Updated [Location, Destination airport, Narrative, Category, Accident report]

Corrections or additions? ... Edit this accident description

The Aviation Safety Network is an exclusive service provided by:
Quick Links:

CONNECT WITH US: FSF on social media FSF Facebook FSF Twitter FSF Youtube FSF LinkedIn FSF Instagram

©2024 Flight Safety Foundation

1920 Ballenger Av, 4th Fl.
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
www.FlightSafety.org