Colgan Q loses wheel on landing...

CRJDriver

Well-Known Member
Incident: Colgan DH8D at Buffalo on May 12th 2009, lost wheel on landing

By Simon Hradecky, created Wednesday, May 13th 2009 09:13Z, last updated Wednesday, May 13th 2009 09:13Z

A Colgan Air de Havilland Dash 8-400, registration N187WQ performing flight 9L-3268 from Newark,NJ to Buffalo,NY (USA), had landed on Buffalo's runway 23 and was taxiing to the ramp via taxiway Alpha, when the tower queried the crew, whether they had lost a tire. After an affirmative reply from the crew emergency services inspected the taxiway and decided to also have a look onto the runway, then reported that fluid, possibly from hydraulics, was on the runway and a whole wheel had been located with debris around the intersections of runway 23, runway 32 and taxiway Alpha. Both runways were closed, runway 32 reopened about 10 minutes later.
 
I'm thinking tower sees airplane with missing wheel, asks them about it, FA looks out the window, says crap we lost a wheel, tells tower, yep it was us.

That fits the timeline presented in the article too.;)

Quite the day to have another incident at BUF with everything else that is going on.
 
It's not the first time an airplane has completely lost a wheel either.

It happened to a Bar Harbor 1900 back in the winter of 1985. Plane took off from Bangor on a snowy day, and a plow truck found it in a snowbank. Traced the part and serial numbers back to a 1900 that was enroute to BOS. Said airplane returned to Bangor, burned off a bunch of fuel, and landed without any further damage. My dad was the Captain, and my mom who was pregnant with me worked in the accounting department. At the time it was a big deal to everyone in the company and they were all gathered in the dispatch office, including the Captains pregnant wife.

That airplane was previously involved in a mid air collision with a photo chase plane. As part of the repair there ended up being an issue with one of the wheel bearings causing it to fall off. There were also a few other issues possibly stemming from the midair that caused this airplane to be known as the hangar queen of Bar Harbor's 1900 fleet

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19840520-0

Thats the link about the midair
 
Thats a bummer. But on the plus side, the ONLY song that popped into my head was that old jingle... "the batmobile, lost a wheel, and the joker got away!"
 
Surely upon learning about the missing tire they set the brake and got a tow to the gate.
 
An Eagle ATR lost a wheel at ORD one day back in about 1996-ish. Ask Bill, he'll tell you all about it (he was the F/O) :D.
 
Does anyone remember when we could post up news about MX at Colgan (or some other airline) and we'd just say something like "Simply the Best"? Part of me wants the seriousness of the situation, a growing part of me wants back the happy times when we could make fun of ourselves and our minds not wander to recent events.

Anyway, here's hoping someday we can get back to saying "Simply the Best" and having a good chuckle.

PS. Most of the posts on here have given me a good chuckle btw.:)
 
Sounds like the FO's need to kick the wheels harder on preflight!:crazy:
Its bad enough that we expect the FO to actually look in the direction of the airplane once or twice during the preflight. Now you want them to actually touch the plane too?
 
When I was in new hire training at Colgan, we were told a story.

Apparently, the first crew out one morning was a bit peeved. The outgoing FO the night before hadn't done his post-flight inspection.

The story, as I heard it, included a S-340B.

Apparently, the FO who claimed he had done a good post-flight hadn't really.

The FO doing the morning pre-flight found one of the main gear wheels "missing".

I do believe the outbound FO was updating his resume later on that day.
 
I was just starting to taxi as that plane landed. I watched the landing roll and I didn't see anything unusual. I then had to wait 10 mins for takeoff while they cleared the runways. Field Ops had told tower that there was pieces of tires, brakes, hyd fluid, and an axle on the runway. I don't know if that is entirely true or not, the Ops guys got a bit excited.:panic:
 
The low time experience level of the crew is at fault for causing the tire to come off during landing.

Pilot Error.

Case Closed.
 
Back
Top