The FAA is investigating what caused the nose gear of a Boeing 717 to fail Wednesday morning, resulting in a partial gear-up landing at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (KCLT).
The transport category jet, identified as Delta Flight 1092, made an emergency landing with no injuries to the 104 persons on board.
According to Delta, the flight departed from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (KATL) at 7:25 a.m. EDT.
“As it approached KCLT, the pilots received a ‘nose gear unsafe’ indication,” the airline told FLYING in a statement. “The crew aborted the landing to further investigate the indication. Initial reports indicate that the flight crew flew by the [KCLT] air traffic control tower to allow air traffic controllers an opportunity to visually inspect the plane. That observation indicated that the nose landing gear doors were open, but the nose gear itself remained in the up position.”
The pilots were able to land the airplane on Runway 18R/36L. According to airnav.com, the runway measures 9,000 feet by 150 feet.
Video shot by a passenger inside the aircraft and posted on the airport’s Facebook page shows the passengers in the cabin in the brace position as the airplane approaches the runway. The touchdown is smooth, leading a man to remark, “That was not bad at all,” followed by the sound of metal sliding on pavement.
My son was on that plane . Front Landing gear did not come down. Landed safely. Pilot did phenomenal job. pic.twitter.com/0H5vQ2dB7P
— Janice Skotarczak (@GrammaJanna1) June 28, 2023
Social media posts from the airport show the airplane on the runway with the evacuation slide deployed. Passengers calmly walked across the runway, some pausing to use their smartphones to capture an image of the crippled airliner.
Airport officials and the FAA were on scene for several hours, and the runway remained closed. The airport has three runways aligned 18/36 and runway 5/23. While 18R/36L remains closed, the other runways are operational, and the facility remains open at this time.
“Our focus is now to take care of our customers on this flight, including retrieving their bags and seeing them to their final destinations safely,” Delta said in a statement. “We apologize to our customers for what they experienced.”
Delta deployed a TechOps aircraft recovery team and a flight safety team to KCLT and noted the airline is fully cooperating with FAA and National Transportation Safety Board investigations.
