Boeing 767 Cargo Jet Loses Gear Door, Lands in Neighborhood
A Boeing 767 that dropped its gear door in to a neighborhood in Washington could have belonged to DHL...
A gear door from a Boeing 767 cargo plane fell off and landed in a residential neighborhood as it was on final approach to Boeing field.
ABC News reports:
‘Witnesses say the object fell from the sky just before 7 a.m. Friday morning, crashing down onto a residential street in Kent, Washington’s East Hill. The piece of metal skipped about 30 feet before coming to rest on the street, KOMO reported.
Just moments before the door crashed into the neighborhood, people described what looked like a cargo jet flying unusually low.
“It sounded like maybe a little distressed, or vibrating,” Kent resident Diane Oien said.’
The Federal Aviation Administration was soon on the scene to investigate the incident. In a statement, the agency told ABC News the object was “a landing gear door from a Boeing 767.”
Fortunately, no one was hurt.
Airnation.net has been told the 767 in question was a DHL cargo plane. We cannot confirm that at this time.
Image: Flickr [ackook]
Category: Airnation
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After examining the arrivals data for that morning, it appears that the incident aircraft was a 767-200 owned by ABX (Airborne Express) flight 904 being operated in DHL colors. ABX owns only twenty-five 767-200s with manufacture dates between 1982-1985, which are a sample of the 29th-123rd 767′s ever produced (so, they’re some of the oldest 767′s still flying).
For a gear door to fall off, that’s pretty extreme!
@chris, and your point is…….
I think the point is rather trivial- this aircraft belongs to a sample of the oldest 767′s flying today, and it makes this incident a little easier to believe. If the aircraft was relatively new, i’d be more surprised to see something like this happen. I don’t know what caused the incident, but knowing the aircraft’s age is essential in any investigation.
More essential is an investigation into the aircrafts recent maintenance, or maybe lack off !
Age should really not be a relevant factor. Aircraft in active service, regardless of age or their country of registration are required to be maintained to certain standards, regardless. Large commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 767 after accruing 40,000 flight hours and/or 40,000 landing (in most countries that I am aware of) fall into a program called the “aging aircraft program” where the maintenance requirements requirements are considerably more stringent than normal. In 99% of the cases of incidents such as this “detached landing gear door”, the incident, with good maintenance practice being adhered to, was avoidable. My background? 47 years of aircraft maintenance on fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft from Cessna 140 to Boeing 747-8, from field maintenance to quality assurance inspection and 14 years ownership of my own aircraft maintenance business.