An African Airlines Cote d'Ivoire airliner made four landing attempts due to a landing gear failure, and finally landed on the nose and lay on the runway.
Comprehensive foreign media reported that on the evening of July 9, local time, a Dash8-400 aircraft registered as TU-TSK of Ivorian Airlines flew HF-45 flight from Korhogo to Abidjan, and in the process of landing, the nose gear failure could not be released.
Passengers on board said the plane had attempted to land four times and that the crew had never received instructions to lower and lock the nose gear.
Eventually, the plane landed in a nose-to-nose grounding, but fortunately there were no casualties in the incident.
Ivorian Airlines said in a statement that the flight made an emergency landing at Felix Houfoe-Boigny Airport in Abidjan at 7.15pm on July 9 due to a failure of its front landing gear and "no injuries to the passengers and crew on board due to the professionalism of the pilots." The airline has not confirmed how many passengers and crew are on board the plane.
The incident caused the airport's only runway to be closed until the early hours of July 10, affecting flight take-offs and landings.
After the incident, Ivorian Transport Minister Amadou Koné was present at the scene and publicly praised the pilots and first responders. "Judging from the testimony of the passengers on board and experts in the field, the pilots and their collaborators showed professionalism, composure and a good grasp of the procedure in this case," the minister said in a statement on July 10, "the same is true of ground services, who do everything possible to provide passengers with the necessary assistance and ensure that they are taken care of." ”