A Cargolux Boeing 747-8F, registered as LX-VCB, was forced to declare an emergency after the crew received an alert that the aircraft’s landing gear had not properly deployed on approach to Luxembourg Findel Airport (LUX).
The Boeing 747-8F was coming into land at LUX during the operation of flight CV5486 from Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) on May 20, 2023, when the crew received a notification on the Engine-indicating and crew-alerting system (EICAS) warning that the aircraft’s landing gear had not deployed properly.
“They executed a low fly past to confirm that all gears were down. The aircraft landed safely with the emergency services on hand,” Cargolux said in a statement released on May 20, 2023.
Data from Flightradar24.com showed the aircraft was on its final approach at around 11:30 am local time (UTC +2) when the crew decided to abort the landing attempt and circle around LUX in a holding pattern at 3,900 feet. Subsequently, the Cargolux pilots performed the low fly-past in what was likely to have been a chance for Air Traffic Control (ATC) to assess whether the landing gear had been deployed before attempting to land once again at 11:47 am local time (UTC +2).
The crew squawked 7700, the code for a general emergency, just prior to landing at LUX at 11:57 am local time (UTC +2), before successfully landing the Boeing 747-8F at the airport at 12:00 pm local time (UTC +2).
On May 14, 2023, another Cargolux Boeing 747F, a -400F, lost its right-body landing gear bogie after it detached after landing at LUX. Although it had lost its landing gear bogie, the aircraft came to a controlled stop without any injuries onboard or on the ground. The operator of LUX shut down the runway after the incident and resumed operations on May 15, 2023.