P180 Belly Landing at HPN this Morning - Was it Avantair?

[Captain Morgan]

Wiggums and all those who profess to know it all: First of all, HPN is a mess no matter what happens. Second, you all need to get a degree in communications and go be media hounds because you are all acting like them. Good job to those guys who got the thing down safely!

CM

 

[JimNtexas]

liveatc.net has the audio of this incident. The crew said they were 'fuel critical'. It sounded like they did a fly by with the gear down and asked how the main gear looked. The tower said they didn't know what the gear should look like, but one gear was hanging differently than another.

The crew then said they'd come in for a gear up landing, which they did.

 

[mainiac]

Great job, guys! After working every possible procedure, I'm sure the belly landing was the last possible alternative, and the outcome was: No Personal injury!

and..
Major apology to all those poor inconvenienced souls at HPN..
sorry, I can't maintain sincerity in that apology

PS ( I always thought feathering was a good idea too, Cherry!)

 

[avbug]

From the little bit of information provided here, the crew appears to have done a good job.

For those second guessing the crew's decision, I don't see anything that tells me they made a bad one. The truth is, there isn't enough information, and what there is comes from the popular media; hardly the means for accurate detail-oriented technical reporting. What is evident, particularly in the picture, is that the crew made a good, contolled landing, which ended safely. I believe that's the general idea, the goal.

Need a long runway for a gear up landing? They weren't in the space shuttle. You might as well argue that they should have chosen grass or dirt instead of hardtop, but they made a good choice, executed a good touchdown, and apparently all walked away. That's a good day.

So far as being fuel critical, again not knowing the detais of what unfolded, I do know from my own
experiences that one can arrive at the northeast with far less fuel than one planned after having been routed all over creation and pushed down to low altitudes a very long distance from one's destination. Not knowing the details, but knowing that the crew made a safe landing with a happy conclusion, is good enough for now. My congratulations to them.

 

[Bruno06]

I never implied that the management is by any stretch of the imagnination, adaquate. I was simply commenting on the speculation by you, that they would try to hang the crewmembers out to dry. My great knowledge comes from the fact that I actually work there. Piaggios are as reliable as any hand crafted Italian engineered product, fact is the airplane has carbon brakes and its apparent lack of an anti-skid system results in a hight number of blown tires. Not a new problem this year or last year, a problem from day one. No coverup there tough guy, a glareing oversight by Piaggio, you bet. But, if you worked there you would know this. Not to mention that blown tires were not the cause of this problem, gonna have to wait for the investigation to make an informed decision on that. A point worth making is that it seems that people, like yourselves tend to pile on to any press and spin it to make Avantair look bad. The fact that managment does this without trying, does not help. Is your goal here to help our pilot group or just trash our company because you just don't like it. As far as retarded goes, I only smash retarded bloggers like yourself over their heads with the very kock........er rock they crawled from under. And by the way, I don't agree with B-19 and his or her stance on unions.

My concerns are with the pilots. There have been many occasions when I was expected to fly out of limitations and fly aircraft with maintenance ”issues”.
You are right about one thing, I don’t care for Avantair and I don’t respect the management. I have seen how they do hang their pilots out to dry.
Yes, we are all aware of the brake problems, being aware of the cause does not excuse the numerous blown tires. Everyone I know who has experienced a blown tire is adamant they didn’t touch the brakes. This is a dangerous, potentially fatal problem.
All aircraft are hand-crafted engineered products, some are designed with flaws, this is one of them.
I am not going to reduce myself to your juvenile level with name-calling, it’s ridiculous, however I must take back the expert speller comment. I noticed two mistakes in your post.

As for the pilots involved here, they handled the situation expertly and the last thing on your mind in an emergency situation should be whether you are going to inconvenience others.

 

[indefinitehold]

Really amazing photos of the actual landing. Good Job guys!

http://emtbravo.net/index.php?showtopic=19701

 

[Dashcaptain]

We were about to push off the gate when they landed. It really messed up my day, but I have nothing to say about that crew except that they did a great job. It is supposed to be the nearest suitable airport at a point in time and they felt it was HPN. That is their choice.

During an emergency, you do not think about how this may affect others on the ground. We just dealt with it and left when we could.

 

[blueridge71]

A good job would be heading to a different airport and not screwing up ops at HPN for hours.

No. That would have been a great job.

j/k

I have to agree that I'm not going to second guess them without knowing all the details.

 

[Wankel7]

LOL, yeah if I had an emergency your convience would be priority number one.

 

[Bjetset2]

Enough

I WAS delayed because of this incident and I didn't give a sh.. about MY delay. My airplane was working just fine and theirs wasn't. Who is anybody here who wasn't in that cockpit to second guess where they landed? The outcome was successful and nobody was injured. Isn't THAT what really matters in the end? God this armchair quarterbacking sh.. ticks me off...

 

[greygoose]

Stweart-Newburgh KSWF

2 runways
11,818 feet and 6006 feet long, both 150 feet wide.

Air Guard flies C-130s and C-5s out of it.


33 Miles from HPN, just up the Hudson on the western side of the river.

If I had to put one down gear up Id want the longest runway I could find.

Listening to you all rant about chosing a not so busy airport. An aircraft in distress recieves prioity over any other traffic.
You would want an airport with a longer runway? I don't think a plane landing on its belly is going to use up more runway then if its gear were down. Looking at the pictures on the other website it looks to me like the airplane stopped in less then 1500' by the runway markings.

 

[sperfly]

There are some emergencys that require imediate action and others that don't, If you lost your attitude indicator on top of IMC would you land at the nearest airport that was perhaps below mins just because it was the nearest or would you continue to VMC conditions. I'm sure the airplane didn't just fall out of the sky because the gear didn't come down, and they were in the northeast where there are like more than a few airports. Bottom line is they did a great job on the landing kudos to them and in all honesty who gives a sh!t if they ruined someones day due to a delay.

 

[Dilligaff]

Listening to you all rant about chosing a not so busy airport. An aircraft in distress recieves prioity over any other traffic.
You would want an airport with a longer runway? I don't think a plane landing on its belly is going to use up more runway then if its gear were down. Looking at the pictures on the other website it looks to me like the airplane stopped in less then 1500' by the runway markings.

Actually, they used up most of the runway and stopped about 1500' short of the end of 16. They shutdown the engines and feathered the props before landing and therefore they didn't have the drag from windmilling props on landing so they floated a long way down the runway. From the pics on the other website, it appears that they touched down just before taxiway F and stopped next to K. Regardless, they still did a great job.

 

[Going2Golf]

Listening to you all rant about chosing a not so busy airport. An aircraft in distress recieves prioity over any other traffic.
You would want an airport with a longer runway? I don't think a plane landing on its belly is going to use up more runway then if its gear were down. Looking at the pictures on the other website it looks to me like the airplane stopped in less then 1500' by the runway markings.

Having had to deal with a gear problem in the past, nose gear wouldnt lock in place. My personal preference is to try to put it down on the longest chunk of concrete that I can.

The crew did a fantastic job dealing with what they had to, Im sure they talked to MX Control before making their decision on where to put it on the ground after flying around in circles for awhile.

Again its just personal opinion on where I would have gone in that situation.

Goose, my original post was in reply to somoene elses querry about what other airports were close by.

I never have, nor will I ever second guess anyone for the decision that they made in an emergency.

 

[Bugsmasher Plus]

Well, well, is this another Avantair accident? I heard it was one of their Piaggios. Nobody's talking, could this possibly be another of Avantair's maintenance issue cover-ups????
Glad to hear the pilots were unharmed. Sadly it's probably a matter of time until a serious accident occurs with that company. Management have most likely already linched the pilots and hidden the aircraft. It'll be back on line once everyone's stopped talking, maybe even with a band-aid or two.
Anyone heard any more?

heard it was a hydraulic issue.
anybody hear anything else?