A USAF C-5 Galaxy airlifter has made a successful emergency landing in Spain.

The top image was reportedly taken yesterday at Rota Air Base, Spain.

Sent us by one of our Twitter followers (thank you @asetanton), it shows a U.S. Air Force C-5M Galaxy cargo aircraft, registration 86-0020, that was forced to perform a nose gear up landing at the Spanish airbase after experiencing an unknown failure that made it unable to extend its nose landing gear.

We have just received a photograph from Rota:

The C-5 after the emergency landing in Rota. (via anonymous reader)

According to a source who wishes to remain anonymous, while on approach into Rota, as well extending the gear, the nose gear showed a “red wheels” indication. This told the crew that the gear doors were open but the gear didn’t move.

One of the Engineers ran downstairs to the fiber optic scope that is used in these cases to verify the gears position. The check proved that the nose gear was still up in the gearwell.

After that the aircrew ran the emergency extension procedures. One was to use the emergency extension switch located on the flight deck, and the other was actuating the hydraulic valves on their own.

The crew members tried these procedures in holding for over an hour where they finally had to turn back for Rota as they had reached the bingo fuel. The aircrew attempted to normally cycle the gear numerous times and they eventually got the landing gear to extend roughly 6 inches.

On the way in they ran the “wheels up, crash landing” checklist which included the nose gear up provisions. The provisions have the crew keep the gear up and the doors closed to minimize damage (as seen by the other times this procedure has been run). However, with the gear stuck partially extended, this became impossible. But with luck the wheels were far enough out that the Galaxy actually only experienced visual damage equal to what a wheel on a car looks like after it scraps a curb. After the plane came to a complete stop, the aircrew evacuated the flight deck and then assisted the evacuation of the 21 passengers in the troop compartment.

The wheels were far enough out that the C-5 actually only experienced visual damage equal to what a wheel on a car looks like after it scraps a curb.

Here’s a clip showing the Galaxy as it approaches Rota for the gear up landing:

@asetanton @combataircraft @TheAviationist pic.twitter.com/N3vR7gjQma

— Aset Anton (@asetanton) May 23, 2017

The C-5 Galaxy’s nose gear is part of a unique tricycle-type landing gear system consisting of a total of 28 wheels.

It is a fine piece of machinery made of four main units fitted in tandem pairs, each with a six-wheel bogie with two forward and four rear wheels: the MLG (Main Landing Gear) rotates 90 degrees horizontally to be accommodated inside the gear bays when retracted after take off; furthermore, it is steerable for a 20 degrees left or right for crosswind landings.

Anyway, this was not the first time a Galaxy performed an emergency landing without an extended nose gear. You can find in the Internet at least a couple of videos of such gear up incidents.

The first dates back to August 1986, when a C-5A performed a nose gear up landing at Rhein Main Air Base, Germany:

According to the user who posted it on Vimeo, since Rhein Main shared the runway with the Frankfurt airport, and this gear up landing shut down the airport for at least a couple of hours.

The second incident occurred in May 2001 (we already posted a short story about it here), when a C-5 from Travis Air Force Base diverted to Rogers Dry Lake to perform a successful landing after the nose gear failed.

Top image via @asetanton

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This is cool.

Depending on the type of aircraft, pilots may be required to apply a Wind Correction Angle (WCA) and “crab” the plane aligning nose and tail with the wind direction to counter the drifting effect of side winds during strong crosswind landings.

Whilst most of the planes “de-crab” once the main landing gear touches the ground (or shortly before), the U.S. Air Force iconic B-52 bomber was designed in such a way the landing gear can be set up to 20 degrees left to right of centerline for both takeoff and landing.

In this way, the Stratofortress can stay sideways even after touchdown.

This unique capability is shown in the following video, filmed by Fred Seggie at RAF Leuchars back in 2006 (some of you may have already seen it; still it is probably interesting for those who have never seen it).

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Interesting footage has emerged of a pilot successfully ejecting from a Hungarian Air Force Gripen jet after crash landing.

On Jun. 10, a Hungarian Air Force JAS-39C single-seater Gripen jet crashed at Kecskemét airbase, in Hungary. The pilot, successfully ejected from the aircraft, was flying a training sortie when he experienced a nose gear failure.

After attempting to re-cycle the undercarriage, Maj. Kadar opted for a belly landing. However, after touching the runway, he lost control of the aircraft and was forced to eject.

A video, shot at the Hungarian airbase shows the mishap unfold: as you can see the ejection seat does not separate from the pilot causing him to fall at higher than expected speed with subsequent injury.

The crash follows another incindet that occurred to a Hungarian Air Force Gripen D on May 19 when a two-seater jet crashed on landing at Čáslav air base in the Czech Republic during exercise Lion Effort. Both pilots successfully ejected from the aircraft.

Although investigation in the crashes is still in progress, in spite of some media reports, Hungary’s fleet of Gripens has not been grounded. According to the Hungarian MoD, the JAS-39C involved in the most recent incident will likely be repaired and returned to active service.

H/T Giuliano Ranieri for the link

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One of the few (if not the only) video showing a Harrier Jump Jet (nose) gear up landing on USS Bataan.

Here’s something you don’t see every day.

On Jun. 7, 2014, U.S. Marine Corps Capt. William Mahoney, Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 263 (Reinforced), 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), had to perform Vertical Landing on USS Bataan, after his AV-8B Harrier aircraft experienced a front landing gear malfunction.

USS Bataan was operating in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations to augment U.S. Crisis Response forces in the region when Mahoney took off from the amphibious assault ship.

As he was climbing away from the deck he suddenly realized he had a gear malfunction. He immediately slowed down in order not to overspeed the landing gear, returned above the ship at 2,000 feet and started talking to “Paddles” (LSO – Landing Signal Officers), a pilot in the control tower who could provide assistance by radio.

The Harrier flew the approach at 300 ft so that the LSO could see the landing gear and give some guidance to put the nose on a tool the ship has for this kind of issues: a sort-of stool.

Since there’s no way to train to land in this kind of situation, the pilot had to fly a perfect vertical landing, using the ship lighting system and the help of LSO on his first attempt.

Luckily, he stabilized at 20 feet and managed to land in the proper spot as shown in the video (that, weirdly, was removed by the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet feed that had published it; luckily, we found it again and reuploaded it since it is unclassified and released as you can see in the first frames of the footage).

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Here’s a video shot from the unique 28-wheel main landing gear of a huge C-5 Galaxy.

As already explained, the U.S. Air Force C-5 Galaxy airlifter is equipped with a complex Main Landing Gear (MLG) made of four main units fitted in tandem pairs, each with a six-wheel bogie with two forward and four rear wheels.

What makes it unique is the fact that the gear rotates 90 degrees horizontally to be accomodated inside the bays when retracted and it is also steerable (20 degrees left or right) for crosswind landings.

Here’s an interesting video which shows an approach and landing from an unusal point of view located close to the MLG.

H/T to Roberto Giordano for sharing this video with us.

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