Another Midnight!

Life is funny sometimes, there's no doubt about that. The circumstances people find themselves in can lead you to believe there is indeed bad karma out there! It was only 2 posts ago that I wrote about airport activity on the midnight shift and how one pilot experienced trouble with his landing gear and all the help that was waiting for him should something go wrong.

Last night was another busy night with late flights and a little bird that didn't survive his meeting with a bigger, metal, faster bird. I thought my night would calm down rather early after getting the bird off the runway and heading back to the office. I listened to my aeronautical radio for a bit to hear the last of the airplanes arrive for the night. I perked up a bit when I heard the ground controller say he would "call the ADO" (ADO is me). It was something about debris on the runway and a small airplane not wanting to land on our shorter runway.

I decided to be proactive and head out to the airfield to see what was going on. I soon discovered that the pilot from last week's gear trouble was finishing his last run of the night when his right side landing gear collapsed upon landing. This time, he had no indication anything was wrong. His landing gear light was green telling him the gear was down and locked. He had no reason to believe this would be anything but a good landing. But, the airplane lied to him....one gear was not locked and it folded back into the wheel well when it hit the pavement. The airplane slid off the runway, made a 180 and came to rest in the grass with one side tilted to the ground. The tail was damaged pretty bad from dragging on the ground. He made this not so perfect landing quietly with no help standing by and no one noticing. It was, after all, 1:30 in the morning. His only request to the control tower was to have someone check the runway for his landing gear. He was not aware it was still attached and had thought it broke off.

I instructed the control tower to activate the "crash phone" which sent out 1 airport fire truck. This was a crash after all and I had to initiate the proper response. I spend the next 5 hours with the pilot, our police and phone interviewing with the FAA from Atlanta. Removal of the wrecked aircraft was done with the world's largest boom tow truck. The plane was lifted in the air long enough for their maintenance guy to pull the failed landing gear down and lock it. They towed it to their hangar! The pilot wasn't injured and we only had one runway light run over. The plane will require some big repairs before flying again!

Never a dull "mid"night at the airport these days!