Aer Lingus flight to Belfast landed without one wheel due to axle failure: AAIB

A fractured axle caused by overheating led an Aer Lingus flight to land in Belfast without one wheel, according to a report from the United Kingdom’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).  

On October 31, 2023, during its return flight from Edinburgh Airport (EDI), the aircraft, an ATR 72-212, executed an ILS approach and successfully landed on Runway 04 at Belfast City Airport (BHD). The flight proceeded and landed at Belfast City Airport without any abnormal indications or adverse aircraft performance.  

The flight crew reported that everything appeared normal until after the aircraft was parked, which is when the ground crew informed the commander that a nosewheel was missing.  

In the report into the 2023 incident, which was released on April 3, 2025, the AAIB stated that the detachment was not observed by the airfield operations department and the flight crew were unaware of the loss of the wheel. The nosewheel was later discovered beside the runway in Edinburgh.  

According to the report, the nosewheel had separated from the aircraft during takeoff from Edinburgh. The AAIB noted that it was not easily visible to the personnel in the control tower and appeared on the surface movement radar for only a couple of seconds before moving off the runway. 

According to the AAIB findings, the right nose landing gear (NLG) wheel detached from the aircraft during takeoff due to a failure of the axle onto which the wheel was located. The axle failure was attributed to a fracture caused by overheating of the wheel’s bearings. 

While the AAIB reported that the exact cause of the failure could not be definitively identified, certain factors were determined that may have contributed to the bearing overheating. 

“These included over greasing of the inner and outer bearings, the lack of wheel balancing weights and the application of an interposition product between the mating faces of the two half-wheels which can cause the tie bolts to loosen,” the AAIB report concluded. The post Aer Lingus flight to Belfast landed without one wheel due to axle failure: AAIB appeared first on AeroTime.

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