Kathmandu. A major accident was averted when a landing gear wheel of a Buddha Air plane flying from Janakpur, the capital of Madhesh Province, to Kathmandu on Thursday fell off.
Buddha Air flight 9ANH, which took off from Janakpur at 4:45 pm, was landed at Kathmandu Airport without one of the nose landing gear wheels, thus averting a major accident that would have caused the plane to roll over.
The plane’s wheel came off on the runway at Janakpur Airport. The plane, carrying 62 passengers, was forced to land in Kathmandu without a nose landing gear. It has two wheels connected in parallel. One of the two wheels has come off.
Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal spokesperson Gyanendra Bhul has confirmed that one wheel of a Buddha Air Nine N ANH aircraft has come off. The nose gear is attached to the front wheel of the aircraft and the landing gear is attached to the rear wheel. While landing on the runway, the aircraft lands on the runway by balancing both the front and rear wheels. Since the runway is designed to land with high pressure, the entire weight of the aircraft must be supported by the landing gear.
On December 22, a Buddha Air flight from Kathmandu to Bhairahawa had to declare an emergency after one of its engines caught fire and return to Tribhuvan Airport. Earlier, on July 27, a 9N-AOC aircraft that had landed from Kathmandu to Bhairahawa skidded off the runway at around 9 pm.
