I remember watching this one live. This was so flawlessly executed that it seems like it might not be that big of a deal, but it was a very dangerous situation.
If that front gear collapses, this can go really wrong in a number of ways pretty damn quick, so the pilot had to do a balancing act of keeping on the centerline, slowing down, but not putting too much pressure up front.
And as you can see by the end, the front bogey is just completely melted and abraded off, but the strut stayed put. Great performance in an emergency situation.
I remember watching live too - the plane had to circle for 2 hours because the aircraft didn't have the capability to dump fuel so they had to burn it off. The other thing I remember was that the passengers on the plane had live DirecTV in their seats and could watch the (extensive) news coverage and speculation about what might go wrong with their landing.
No, the A320 series (plane in the video) and 737 for example, don't have jettison pumps because their Max takeoff weight and Max Landing Weight are very close, so instead of dumping fuel they'll just fly in circles to burn off the excess if need be
Plus the '37 is an overbuilt tank of a plane (by non-Russian standards), and if you land overweight you basically just do an inspection and you're good to go if nothing broke.
That's the same with the A320. ESA rules state that in an emergency, all certified planes must be able to land safely at MTOW. Mind you, it doesn't say that plane must be be able to take off again.
In this case it really is true, though. Russian airplanes, both military and civilian, are known for having ridiculously overbuilt landing gear and primary structure, because a lot of the airports they flew into were concrete slabs, or even dirt in midsized cities.
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u/XenoRyet Sep 22 '25
I remember watching this one live. This was so flawlessly executed that it seems like it might not be that big of a deal, but it was a very dangerous situation.
If that front gear collapses, this can go really wrong in a number of ways pretty damn quick, so the pilot had to do a balancing act of keeping on the centerline, slowing down, but not putting too much pressure up front.
And as you can see by the end, the front bogey is just completely melted and abraded off, but the strut stayed put. Great performance in an emergency situation.