Ice Pilots NWT emergency landing

Nforce

Buffalo Air Electra made a safe emergency landing yesterday after suffering landing gear problems...

Yellowknife, N.W.T. - The owner of Buffalo Airways is thankful everything turned out safely for everyone involved yesterday.

Buffalo's Electra plane was forced to make an emergency landing at the Yellowknife Airport after one of its landing gear malfunctioned.

The landing was successful and all six people on board were safe and sound.

Joe McBryan said the crew did everything right.

“They followed all the procedures in their training and their exercises,” he said. “They did everything possible and the result is they got the aircraft down with as minimal amount of damage as you could possibly do under those circumstances.”

McBryan says the plane flew overhead for about an hour to burn off fuel and lighten the plane, but the crew was also taking that time for something else.

“They were using that time to go through all the emergency drills,” he said. “I was on the phone to people making sure we weren’t missing anything that we could have done to alleviate the problem. As it turned out, they made the right decision.”

McBryan also said everyone in the vicinity of the airport, including the military, offered help and he's thankful for the offers.

http://hqyellowknife.com/news/local/news/Local/12/03/6/Buffalo-Joe-praises-staff-for-successful-emergency-landing

http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2012/03/06/hollywood-landing-on-yellowknife-runway-for-ice-pilots-airline/

Pics here.. http://imgur.com/a/uFkOP

xflyer

Remember the accident at Shannon where an Electra landed with the gear up, unintentionally this time. The crew realised too late and initiated a go around but one engine fell off, another failed, a third only had partial power. So the aircraft flew a quick circuit on one and a bit engines and somehow everyone survived. They built those Electras tough.

Nforce

Judging by the damage to this one,I reckon she's for the boneyard.
The whole thing was probably caught on camera for the upcoming series 4.

Irish Steve

The fact that it's alreay up on it's gear, and been moved suggests that while there is damage, a lot of it is superficial, things like engine cowlings, gear doors and even flaps are not that structural, even a missing prop is repairable, there doesn't appear to be any mis alignment of the engine.

Knowing the image of Buffalo, they will do their best to get spares from where ever to repair it, simply because replacing it will be almost impossible, Electras are like hens teeth, we know that from previous series, and if they are using them, it's because they need to, and unless Joe is about to start buying something like C130's, there's not much to replace the Electra.

Given the environment they operate in, their record is very good, if I was 20 years younger, my CV would for sure have been heading for Yellowknife, but that's life for you.

Nforce

I remember from a previous episode, one of the mechs saying that the prop only for the Electra cost $75,000! They picked up a load of spares when they bought the ex-Atlantic Airlines example.
The PC-3 sim gear up landing experience probably helped too!

Edit: Just finished up watching series 3 and have my fingers crossed for Arnie.

Nforce

Turns out the aircraft involved in this incident was in fact the ex-Coventry based example.. C-FBAQ

http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=144251

BrianD

When he says this:

"...but the crew was also taking that time for something else."

i was expecting something else like delivering a baby or something highly dramatic.

Instead they were doing the bleeding obvious.

“They were using that time to go through all the emergency drills,” he said. “I was on the phone to people making sure we weren’t missing anything that we could have done to alleviate the problem. As it turned out, they made the right decision.”

Or perhaps downloading the manual on their iPhones or screaming "We're going to die".

I look forward to seeing it on Discovery. Unless they dumped the camera crew with the fuel.

Blue Punto

Nforce wrote: »

I remember from a previous episode, one of the mechs saying that the prop only for the Electra cost $75,000! They picked up a load of spares when they bought the ex-Atlantic Airlines example.
The PC-3 sim gear up landing experience probably helped too!

Edit: Just finished up watching series 3 and have my fingers crossed for Arnie.

Yeah i finished watching season 3 a while back ,Arnie is a character alright and it was sad to see that the dreaded "C" got to him

As for seeing the accident on season 4 ,according to Joe McBryan there was no film crew onboard the aircraft at the time of the incident so I doubt we will see much more than we already have

Blue Punto

although I have sourced this

Su Campu

A guy in work said his son was on the flight and caught it all on two cameras. Not much to see of it I suppose from the inside but exciting nonetheless!

andy_g

when i was in college i did an internship as part of the course been trying to get thru to all the crew in Yellowknife to see what they say.

Skype and phone lines are jammers.

Nforce

andy_g wrote: »

when i was in college i did an internship as part of the course been trying to get thru to all the crew in Yellowknife to see what they say.

Skype and phone lines are jammers.

Try Facebook.

andy_g

Ah facebook is all well and good but not as personal as everyone has everyone there now a days

Got thru in the end few cuts and bruises recieved will have some pics hopefully later this evening of the AC after the incident.

Turbo Porter

xflyer wrote: »

Remember the accident at Shannon where an Electra landed with the gear up, unintentionally this time. The crew realised too late and initiated a go around but one engine fell off, another failed, a third only had partial power. So the aircraft flew a quick circuit on one and a bit engines and somehow everyone survived. They built those Electras tough.

Yes the accident report made an interesting read.Here's a shot of the said aircraft(excuse the quality pre my DSLR days).
http://jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=22126&nseq=0

Jesus Nut

Such a rare plane these days! Sad to see this happen.
Last time I flew an Electra was in 2009 into Belfast. Really nice plane to fly I must say

xflyer

Sad to see really. Is that Electra still in Shannon or has it been scrapped?

Reminds me of the time when Electras were a common sight. I had the pleasure of taxying one at Dublin Airport. That was the closest I got to flying one. But I sat in the left seat a few times making vroom, vroom sounds while they sat on the cargo ramp. My job at the time was somewhat akin to the 'rampy' job as seen on Ice Pilots and there was a chance of getting into the right seat of the Electra. In fact I was told off the record that I had a very good chance. But the job didn't last, sadly. What a great start to a career that would have been, flying a four engined turboprop.

Ah nostalgia!

Turbo Porter

xflyer wrote: »

Sad to see really. Is that Electra still in Shannon or has it been scrapped?

No today there is no sign of the hulk of that aircraft in Shannon today so she is Aimsir Chaite