Three Hours

Shortly before 5pm on Sunday, a vintage Antonov AN-2 landed at Findel Airport. Its landing gear gave way. The left tyre buckled, the wing broke open on the runway, and the aircraft skidded to a stop, no longer under control. Ten passengers, a pilot, and a co-pilot were on board. None of them were hurt.[1]

The runway stayed closed for three hours.[2]

Three hours is not a long time. It is the length of a film, or a long lunch, or the drive from Luxembourg City to Trier and back. At an airport, it is an eternity. Forty-four flights were affected. More than 3'500 Luxair passengers were stranded or redirected. Five thousand two hundred people, roughly a third of all passengers passing through Findel on a typical Sunday, had their travel plans upended. Luxair director Gilles Feith puts the cost to the airline at an estimated 200'000 euros in hotel bookings and rebookings alone.[3]

The pilot, who has flown this aircraft for fifteen years, told RTL he believes a side wind caused the tyre to buckle. Lux-Airport director Alexander Flassak declined to speculate, saying a technical analysis would provide clarity. The Antonov AN-2 is a post-Second World War design, registered in Poland but based at Findel. It held a valid licence and had been cleared for operations.[4]

The recovery operation was complex. The technical investigation first had to release the aircraft. The Grand Ducal Fire and Rescue Corps then had to work out how to physically remove it from the runway. The runway was inspected and cleaned before flight operations could resume. Planes were able to take off during the closure, but none could land, because the full length of the runway was not available.[5]

This is not the first time. In November last year, a light sports aircraft accident caused similar disruption. Flassak says the mix of private and commercial aviation at Findel is becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile. The airport handles cargo aircraft, commercial passenger flights, and private sports planes on the same runway. Even minor incidents now have outsized consequences.[6]

The master plan for the airport's future reflects this tension. Sports aircraft, in the long term, should no longer operate out of Findel. Flassak is careful to say that Lux-Airport is not opposed to sports aviation as a hobby or a sport. The problem is coexistence. A small plane that breaks its landing gear on a Sunday afternoon can ground an entire national airline for the rest of the day.[7]

No damage to the runway was found during the inspection. The report being drawn up will shed light on the exact cause. In the meantime, the Antonov sits as a reminder that the margin between a routine landing and a three-hour shutdown of a national airport is thinner than anyone would like.[8]