Singapore Airlines aircraft collapses after nose gear retracts

SINGAPORE — A Singapore Airlines (SIA) aircraft keeled over onto its nose on the Changi Airport tarmac during maintenance work this morning (Oct 11) after its nose gear retracted during a landing gear system check.

The national carrier said there were no passengers or flight crew on board at that time. An engineer was on board although he was not hurt.

Responding to TODAY’s query as to what caused the nose gear to retract, SIA said: “Maintenance work was being carried out on the aircraft to rectify a defect, and the gear retracted during a subsequent landing gear system check.”

The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore is investigating the incident, which happened at around 8am.

The aircraft, an Airbus A330-300, had been scheduled to operate Flight SQ890 from Terminal 3 to Hong Kong at 7.35am. Due to maintenance carried out on the damaged plane, another aircraft was assigned to the flight. Online flight schedules showed the flight taking off 40 minutes later than scheduled.

The aircraft had last operated Flight SQ835, which arrived in Singapore from Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport at 12.49am today.

“We do not have details of damage to the aircraft at this point. An assessment will be carried out after it is removed from the gate,” said SIA. “Singapore Airlines will be co-operating fully with the authorities in their investigations.”