787 gear collapse at Heathrow airport! SPECIAL PODCAST !

The Good the Bad and the Ugly: The Aviation Maintenance Industry - Raw!

Hey there and thanks for tuning in! This is a special podcast covering the B787 Nose Gear collapse that occurred today at Heathrow airport. I received several emails this morning asking what I thought about the incident. Although I've never wrenched on the B787 I still share my thoughts on this podcast. #787 heathrow

EDIT - TWO CORRECTIONS:

1.) I said in this podcast that the B787 system retract is done through a electrical motor- I was wrong its still hydraulic, using electric motor pumps but doesn't use engine driven hydraulic pumps. BUT it uses electrical driven actuators on the landing gear locks. ** Thank you Tim.S for correcting me :)

2.) So some clarification: On the vast majority of aircraft, the NLG (nose landing gear) is more susceptible to collapse or 'fold' than the MLG (main landing gear). On larger aircraft, the over-center mechanism on the NLG is not very effective because much of the aircraft weight is not on the nose gear.

Once the main gears are down and locked, on the ground you need three things before you can retract the main gear:

1. Bypass the electric circuit protections preventing gear retraction on the ground;
2. Lift the aircraft weight off the landing gears by jacking up, and
3. Break the over-center mechanism using the hydraulic muscle of the landing gear retraction mechanism.

As of what I can tell right now, the aircraft was parked and un powered. Thus even though I mentioned the 'human' element in my podcast- the aircraft was not powered up (from what I can tell) so theoretically the gear should not have folded- Even if the gear override switch was pressed in and the landing gear control lever were moved to up- The gear should not have folded UNLESS it was powered up?? ... hmmm

So that leaves this:

1.) Were the gear pins installed on the NLG?

2.) Was the aircraft being towed and the brakes not released causing a failure of the NLG?

3.) Was their a mechanical failure in the NLG?

4.) Was there a structural failure of the gear 'BOX' structure?

5.) Or still, WAS it actually powered on and someone DID retract the gear on the ground?

Ill definitely be following the investigation as it progresses. As always, thanks for listening and stay tuned for more up coming podcasts!

Reach out to me at: [e-mail] , https://anchor.fm/bryan-wheelz/messageor Twitter @goodbadugly_ap

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