Aer Lingus jet in emergency landing after hydraulic failure
Flight EI110 took off from JFK airport on Monday at 6.30pm local time carrying 115 passengers. However, after circling over Long Island for a short time, it was forced to return to the airport to make an emergency landing.
All of the passengers left the aircraft safely and are being accommodated on other flights.
Shortly after takeoff, the pilots received a failure notification in relation to the jet’s hydraulic system and landing gear.
An audio recording of the communications between the pilot and Air Traffic Control at JFK reveal the pilot informing the airport of the possibility of having to return.
“We do have a technical issue here — we lost our hydraulic system, one hydraulic system so we are going to have to return to Kennedy at some stage, not quite yet,” said the pilot.
“I would like you to inform Kennedy that we have lost hydraulic fluid and it may be dumped on the runway we’re not sure. Please standby for further.”
The crew informed JFK that they would require to enter a holding pattern for about 30 minutes stating they had “quite a long checklist to work through”.
Confirming there were 115 passengers and crew on board the pilot also told controllers they would be landing with 23.1 tonnes of fuel (23,100kg) in the tanks but that this was within safe landing-weight limits.
Asked if he was declaring an emergency the pilot said “no”. The pilot was also asked whether he wanted crash and rescue services on stand by.
ALERT No reports of injuries after hydraulic issues on Aer Lingus flight cause fire in brakes upon emergency l... http://t.co/XxZIszIXHJ
— AIRLIVE (@airlivenet) September 29, 2015
The crew confirmed they wanted emergency services “on standby” stating: “The gear doors are down, we’ll have a higher than normal touchdown speed and we have slightly reduced braking efficiency but that this was within the limits of the runway.”
After a safe landing, the jet was quickly surrounded by emergency vehicles. Both main landing gear were found to be smoking as a result of leaking hydraulic fluid that was ignited by the warm breaks.
Fire crews also confirmed there was a small fire in one of the landing gears but that it was quickly brought under control.
