Report outlines why Delta flight from Atlanta had to land nose-down in Charlotte
Channel 2 Action News' sister station Channel 9 WSOC-TV reported when Delta Flight 1092 from Atlanta had to land on its belly; that happened on June 28, 2023.
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The National Transportation Safety Board released its findings this week, and it says a fractured gear in the plane led to the issue.
The report says Boeing issued a service bulletin on the part in 2001. After the crash, the part was inspected and had been marked to indicate that the service 'had been performed' in 2009.
But according to the report, it's likely that the 'service bulletin was not adequately complied with.'
ABC News Aviation Expert John Nance looked at the report with Channel 9 to explain what happened.
'For the nose gear, especially, it's a matter of landing on the means and slowly putting the nose down. This is the type of emergency everybody trains for. It's startling when it occurs, but it's really not lethal,' Nance said.
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According to the NTSB report, an examination after the crash revealed that the 'landing gear upper lock link failed from a fatigue fracture.'
Inspectors say the fatigue cracks were found along scratches 'consistent with tool marks, such as from filing or grinding.' According to the report, the scratches came from a ratchet.
Once the cracks had gone a third of the way across, the part broke, and the nose gear wouldn't extend.
'This is basically a metal fatigue situation, this is what the NTSB is so good at, taking a piece of metal that failed and figuring out how it failed. And in this case, if a service bulletin had been followed, this wouldn't have happened,' Nance said.
All 104 people on board got off safely.
According to FlightAware, the plane is still in service and even flew in and out of CLT Tuesday morning.
Delta sent Channel 9 the following statement on Tuesday:
"As a result of the investigation Delta ... performed the following safety actions: Completed an inspection of all upper lock links installed on their fleet of Boeing 717 airplanes and all spare lock links in their inventory with no reported crack findings."
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