Sam's Queen Air Crash

Happened at Detroit City Airport DET July 2010 - GREAT save! $180K worth of damage - took 2.5 months to fix it

[@LandNfan]

Back around 1986, I was in the right seat of a Queen that had the nose gear fold up unexpectedly on landing. We showed a normal gear down indication, but when we landed, it just collapsed. It was discovered that the pin or bolt that the upper end of the downlock brace pivots on had sheared off and backed out of the hole. It wasn’t something you could see on a preflight inspection. It was a shame, because it pretzeled two freshly overhauled props and cracked the crankshafts of two low-time engines. Even though it was only used for light freight, flying film and prints for an overnight photo processing company, it was still a very nice airplane. It had a nice solid feel, but was still quite responsive on the controls.

[@radarvectors2]

Norman Morgan that’s always a bummer.. the dream is to shut them down on short final & bump the starters so the props don’t hit, but it’s a long shot!

[@LandNfan]

radarvectors2 you are right, but we had no idea there was anything wrong until the nose hit the ground. My friend (and instrument instructor) was flying and I was just along for the ride. We had just made an ILS 22 approach here at EVV after a round trip to Muskegon, MI. He touched down softly, holding the nose off and letting the speed bleed off. As the nose slowly came down, it just kept going! Total surprise. It was on Super Bowl Sunday. Turns out there was a DC-9 inbound from Louisville a few miles behind us on final that had to make a missed approach and hold. When it became apparent that 04-22 was going to be closed for longer than he could wait, he had to go back to SDF. The next morning, I started getting teased at worked before I had both feet through the door. Seems the president of our company was on that flight from SDF, hoping to get home in time to see the game. Oops!