Watch as near-new Lufthansa 787’s front landing gear fails at airport

A Boeing Co. 787 airliner operated by Deutsche Lufthansa suffered a collapsed nose landing gear while parked at a gate at Frankfurt Airport, injuring several people and causing damage to the almost factory-fresh airliner.

The aircraft parked at Gate A15 in Frankfurt was being prepared for its flight to Los Angeles when the front landing gear suddenly collapsed at 12:45pm local time, Lufthansa said in a statement. Passengers had not yet boarded the plane at the time of the incident, and two cabin crew as well as two employees of a service company were slightly injured and taken to hospital, according to the airline.

Images showed the aircraft named after the German city of Herne slouched on the tarmac at the gate, its front gear retracted and rescue services surrounding the plane. The airliner’s right front cargo door was flipped open, with a service vehicle used to load goods onto the aircraft attached.

Lufthansa said the aircraft is set to be moved a hangar later today for additional technical inspection before repairs occur.

“The exact cause is currently under investigation,” the company said. “Experts are on site examining the aircraft.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if the mishap was due to human error or a possible defect. Video footage showed the plane parked in the gate position when the landing gear retracted, causing the plane to flop onto the tarmac and tearing off the wheel cover.

Aircraft that sit in park position routinely have their landing gear secured with pins to avoid accidental retraction, though these carry distinctive ‘remove-before-flight’ fabric tags. Past mishaps have occurred when the pins were missing or were inserted in the wrong, similar looking holes, causing an accidental retraction.

Still, landing-gear failures are rare if not unheard of. In January last year, a Boeing 737-700 operated by TUI suffered a nose gear failure while parked at Brussels Airport. A British Airways 787-8 took a nosedive at Heathrow Airport in London in mid 2021 while being prepared for flight, causing significant damage to the lower front section of the aircraft.

The incident is an unusual system failure for a plane built only last year, and which entered into service in February, according to data from FlightRadar24. The aircraft was due to operate a flight to Los Angeles from Frankfurt on Thursday, FlightRadar24 data shows.

Lufthansa has seen significant delays introducing the 787 to its fleet because of certification hiccups involving its new Allegris business-class seats. The German carrier flies a mixed fleet of Boeing and Airbus SE aircraft, including the out-of-production 747 jumbo and the newer Airbus A350 jets.

Last month, the carrier ordered an additional 10 each of the Airbus A350-900 and the Boeing 787-9 to replace older planes. The company has about a dozen of the Dreamliner model in operation at this point, with more on order.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s landing gear is made by Safran Landing Systems, previously called Messier-Dowty. The undercarriage on the aircraft consists of two main gear trucks with four wheels each and a two-wheel nose gear. The popular widebody aircraft typically accommodates about 260 passengers in three classes with a range of 8,300 nautical miles.