Manston's rat-plane nose-dives in Dublin

Aptly named Bin Air joins the pantheon of unsavoury and unsafe airlines that are welcome at Manston airport. It would appear that Charles Buchanan, Infratil's representative on Planet Thanet, is so desperate for business that he'll do business with anyone. This does nothing for the confidence or peace of mind of those of us who live near the flight path.

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Dublin Airport reopens after plane's wheel fails

​Picture from The Aviation Herald

The scene of a plane crash at Dublin Airport after the front wheel of the Bin Air aircraft buckled on landing causing the accident on the runway, Thursday March 7, 2013. Neither the pilot nor co-pilot, the only crew, suffered injuries, an airport spokeswoman said.

Flights at Dublin Airport were temporarily suspended Thursday when a BinAir cargo plane's nose wheel collapsed after touching down, the second such landing-gear failure to beset the small German charter airline.

The Dublin Airport Authority said nobody was hurt when the forward landing gear of the Fairchild Metroliner twin-turboprop aircraft failed.

The aircraft, operated by the Munich-based freight carrier BinAir, was carrying two pilots and a cargo of laboratory rats from [Manston] Kent, southeast England. It thumped to a stop with its nose on the tarmac.

Five inbound flights to Dublin were diverted and dozens delayed as authorities shut the obstructed runway. Unfavorable wind conditions meant it took about a half-hour to open a backup runway. The authority said flight schedules at the airport — the busiest in Ireland, averaging more than 400 flights daily — were back to normal by noon.

Thursday's landing-gear mishap was not the first for BinAir, which uses a fleet of about a dozen Metroliner turboprop aircraft and specializes in ad-hoc freight bookings.

In January 2010, a BinAir Metroliner skidded off the runway in Stuttgart, Germany, when the right-side landing gear collapsed upon landing. In that accident, the pilot reported a landing gear fault warning and aborted the initial landing, but ground crew said they could see the landing gear fully deployed. German air safety investigators determined that the right-wing landing gear collapsed upon hitting the tarmac.

European Union and German air safety authorities placed BinAir under "intensified" scrutiny, and warned it could lose its license to operate in Europe, but the airline undertook unspecified actions for "verified safety deficiencies" according to an April 2011 report by the European Commission's Air Safety Committee.

When contacted by telephone, BinAir owner Eugen Pansow declined to identify himself to The Associated Press and hung up. In a follow-up call, Pansow said he couldn't comment until he knew what caused the accident. He declined to specify the aircraft's age or date of acquisition.

The Fairchild Metroliner itself has had a troubled history. About 700 of the aircraft were built in many variants, chiefly in Texas, from 1972 to 1989. They have suffered a dozen fatality-causing crashes over the past quarter-century.

In February 2011, six people were killed at Cork Airport in southwest Ireland when a Metroliner operated by an Isle of Man airline, Manx2.com, clipped a wing on the tarmac and flipped onto its back while trying to land in heavy fog. That was the first deadly crash of a commercial airline flight at an Irish airport.

AP 7th Mar 2013