Croatia Airlines Dash 8 Q400 landing gear issue on approach Brussels Airport

A Croatia Airlines Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 (9A-CQF) from Zagreb to Brussels suffered a landing gear problem on approach towards runway 07L at Brussels Airport on Thursday 22 February.

Flight OU4456 made a normal approach to Brussels Airport runway 07L, as the gear wasn’t properly locked the pilots decided to make a go-around and entered a holding pattern above Antwerp (at 17:17 UTC+1). After a few holding patterns, the time for the pilots to solve the landing gear issue, the aircraft headed back towards Brussels Airport and landed on runway 07L about 30 minutes later.

A passenger on board the flight told his story to Croatian newspaper Telegram: “Shortly before landing at Brussels Airport we made a go-around, we were being told that the landing gear didn’t safely lock and eventually the pilots told us that they were going to land at Brussels. The flight attendant was quite upset and told us to adopt the brace position for landing. After landing the aircraft was unable to taxi to its parking position, so we waited another 45 minutes inside the aircraft.”

Croatia Airlines also confirmed the incident: “There was a landing gear issue on the Dash 8 Q400 aircraft, in accordance with the operating procedures the pilots used an alternative pull-out procedure which was successfully performed. All 58 passengers have safely landed at Brussels Airport. The safety of the passengers and crew wasn’t at any time threatened by the incident as the crew have strictly applied the operational procedures.”

“The subsequent return flight to Zagreb was cancelled and all passengers on that flight have been provided all relevant care in accordance with the European regulations,” the spokesperson concluded.

Technicians are currently looking to solve the landing gear issue, which is a problem that seems to reoccur quite often.