A-10 Warthog Pulls Off Emergency Belly Flop After Landing Gear Malfunction
An A-10 Warthog landed at Moody Air Force Base yesterday after a landing gear malfunction.
The pilot was examined by medical personnel and released.
The A-10 is America’s premiere close air support aircraft, armed with a 30-millimeter Gatling gun, bombs, rockets, and missiles.
An A-10C Thunderbolt II pilot had a close call yesterday when the jet was forced to land without its landing gear fully extended. The attack jet skidded across the runway and came to a halt. The pilot was examined by a flight surgeon on the ground and released. There were no injuries on the ground.
The incident was first reported at the “Air Force amn/nco/snco” page on Facebook, which uploaded the photo above. In the photon the A-10C’s landing gear is at least partially extended, with the doors to the nose landing gear in the down position. The wheel might be partially extended but it’s hard to tell. The left and right wing wheels do not appear to have moved, though—although visible, the A-10C’s wing wheels are partially visible when retracted anyway.
It’s not clear what happened that prompted the pilot to declare an in-flight emergency. The A-10C is designed to take damage and keep operating, and that includes redundancies in the hydraulic system that raises and lowers the landing gears. In the event of hydraulic failure, an auxiliary landing gear extension system releases the gears, which fall into place thanks to gravity.
This A-10C is also missing its cockpit canopy—an odd situation considering the ejection seat is still clearly in place. The landing crunched two AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles, which while intact appear to suffer from buckling. The jet was also carrying at least one AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile. None of the missiles appear to have the blue band that typically signifies practice missiles. The refueling port on the left nacelle is also exposed—either the jet was de-fueled after being declared safe or the shock of the landing knocked the door into the downward position.
Another mishap that took place in 2017 might provide clues for this particular emergency. At the time, an A-10C at Selfridge Air Force Base in Michigan undertook a similar belly landing and also ended up losing its canopy. In that incident, explained by Air Force Times, the A-10 was firing its huge GAU-8/A “Avenger” 30-millimeter Gatling gun when the gun misfired. The misfire blew the canopy off and damaged the landing gear, preventing them from being lowered. The pilot, unsure whether the ejection seat system had suffered damage, elected to belly land the plane.
It’s not clear how much damage the A-10 suffered. The jet is built tough in order to survive the lethal skies over Cold War battlefields, but the airframe is likely over three decades old. The Air Force has announced an investigation into the crash which will hopefully determine its future airworthiness.
Source: Air Force amn/nco/snco
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