BNE Airport closed due wheels up landing

[Sarah C]

From the Courier Mail:

BRISBANE Airport's main runway is closed and travellers are being urged to contact their airlines, after a light plane made a "wheels up" landing this morning.

The Toll Aviation turbo-prop freighter came to rest on its undercarriage about 2.30am.

Incredibly neither of the two pilots was injured.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating and the aircraft has been moved from the runway but it will remain closed until an inspection is complete.

Rebecca Masci from the Brisbane Airport Corporation said both the domestic and international airports were affected.

"The short cross runway has remained open and it is capable of taking aircraft up to Boeing 737 in size," said Ms Masci.

"A number of flights have been affected and we're urging passengers to contact their airline directly for information on delayed or diverted flights."

Qantas is advising passengers that flights will be suspended until at least 7am.

[Brock Little]

Runway 19 is now open to all arrivals.

[lloyd fox]

QF008 from DFW was the first to land after reopening.

[Darren Butterworth]

Any Pics? I've only found some aerial shots of it in the Toll hanger.

[Michael Rychter]

Please forgive my mechanical ignorance but I thought that landing equipment would not need much impetus to actually fall down by gravity once "the pin is pulled."

Would the crew on board be able to manually "pull a pin" to get the gear to come down?

[Rob R]

Pic on the ATSB site.

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/...-2012-024.aspx

[Greg Hyde]

Is it repairable of will it get parted out ?

[David Knudsen]

Originally Posted by Michael Rychter

Would the crew on board be able to manually "pull a pin" to get the gear to come down?

I believe the Metro 3/SA227-AC (not sure about other models, such as the SA227-AT in this accident) does have an emergency gear extension lever that can be operated at 150KIAS to free-fall the gear into place..