LAHORE - A Dubai-bound flight at Lahore airport narrowly escaped disaster Thursday due to failure of its nose landing gear, moments before take-off, said an aircraft engineer.
Some private TV channels reported that due to bursting of tyres pilot applied emergency brakes smelling a technical fault in the plane. Engineer believed that had it a tyre burst incident the tyres would have been torn into pieces but in this case the footage showed the tyre were in good condition but without air pressure.
This is not the first time a Shaheen Air flight has met with an accident. In November last year, a Lahore-bound Shaheen Air flight, carrying 121 passengers and crew members, had to face the same problem at the Lahore airport with structural failure of its main landing gear.
Then CAA had accused the pilot of the passenger flight of being drunk and fatigued as he flew the plane.
Real story behind the repeated accidents of Shaheen Air planes was that airline was operating about 25 years old planes in violation of Aviation Policy 2015 according to which planes not more than 12 years old could be inducted in the fleet of any airline.
Another aircraft engineer seeking anonymity said that second reason behind the accident is inefficiency of the CAA staff who were bound to check such planes randomly before flying but they were not performing duty properly.
Earlier this year, a pilot of Shaheen Air passenger plane refused to fly the aircraft after he found a hole in one of the wings of the plane seconds before departing for Saudi Arabia from Peshawar. Around 330 passengers were scheduled to depart from the airport on flight NL-721 at 10:15pm for Jeddah.
However, when the pilot reached the cockpit, he saw one of the wings had a hole in it and could possibly crash seconds after taking off from the runway.
In the current incident Shaheen Airline flight NL-766 was about to take off for Dubai when moments before take-off pilot heard some noise from engines of the plane and applied emergency brakes to keep the plane on runway. Pilot successfully stopped the plane but in the meanwhile the nose landing gear had ceased functioning. However no human loss or injury was reported though 160 passengers were on board.
After the incident, runway of Allama Iqbal International Airport remained closed for quite some time and then it was opened for operations. CAA officials rushed to the spot and started rescue work.
Tyres of the plane were changed and flight departed after a delay of four hours, said spokesman of the CAA at Lahore airport. He said an inquiry had been started into the issue by CAA authorities.