Hong Kong authorities are investigating a landing gear failure on an Atlas Air freighter aircraft and why the emergency landing resulted in an eight-hour closure of one runway, delaying 450 flights.
The unmarked cargo jet is owned by Nippon Cargo Airlines and supplied to Atlas Air, which provides the crew, maintenance and insurance, according to an aviation database.
Local officials are questioning why it took so long to clear the disabled cargo jet from the runway and urging the airport to review contingency procedures for such cases, the South China Morning Post reported.
The Boeing 747-400 cargo jet operated by Atlas Air returned to Hong Kong International Airport about two hours after departure on Monday morning when the crew noticed a hydraulic system failure prevented a landing gear from retracting. The plane, which was bound for Chicago with a technical stop scheduled in Anchorage, Alaska, burst a tire when touching down on the north runway and was disabled for eight hours. None of the five crew members was injured.
Hong Kong airport has two operational runways.
John Lee, the city’s chief executive, said the airport followed procedures for safely removing the aircraft, which required first removing the cargo and replacing a set of tires, according to the transcript of a press conference that covered a range of topics.
New York-headquartered Atlas Air will be required to submit a report to the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department and the airport about the hydraulic system system failure. Lee said authorities will carefully review the report to learn lessons about actions the airline, the airport or other responders can take in the event of future incidents.
It is the third time this month that Atlas Air has experienced tire and gear issues. On June 11, a 747-400 dumped fuel and returned to Incheon airport in Seoul, South Korea, after pilots detected a hydraulic failure. Three tires on one of the rear body gears were damaged, and the aircraft was stuck on the runway, according to air mission notices from Korean civil aviation authorities and reporting by the Aviation Herald. The aviation blog said the two tires separated during takeoff, cutting the hydraulic line to the landing gear. Photos show the aircraft suffered damage on the underside.
The same aircraft suffered a blown tire nine days earlier landing at Los Angeles International Airport. The aircraft safely taxied to the apron and departed nine hours later to Mexico City.
The freighter has not flown from Incheon since the incident, according to flight tracking site Flightaware.
On Jan. 18, an Atlas Air 747-8 experienced an engine fire climbing out of Miami and returned to the airport there. The National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary investigation found that a maintenance contractor performing a borescope inspection several days prior to the incident forgot to close the access plug.
Several weeks ago, an Atlas Air jumbo jet clipped a building with its wing at Fort Lauderdale airport, according to a Federal Aviation Administration incident board, but proceeded to fly to Miami within a couple hours without incident. The plane was forced to divert to FLL, 30 miles north of Miami International Airport, because of thunderstorms.
Tire bursts are not unusual, but a series of them in a short span would likely spur an airline to look at data to determine if any underlying cause connects the events and requires action, aviation safety experts say.
Atlas Air did not respond to questions in time for publication.
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