To those of you who are wondering what happened to the DHL A300B4 coming out of Baghdad last Saturday, take a look.

Aircraft was hit at 8000 FT, lost ALL hydraulics and therefore had no flight controls, actually did a missed approach using only engine thrust and eventually (after about 16 mins) landed heavily on runway 33L at Baghdad.

This was fortunate because with no steering the aircraft veered of the runway to the left, had they landed on 33R veering to the left would
have taken them straight into the fire station.

The aircraft then travelled about 600 metres through soft sand taking out a razor wire fence in the process, see LH engine pic, and came to
rest almost at the bottom of the sloping area between the runway and a taxiway.

All three crew evacuated safely down the second slide, the first one tore on the razor wire.

I flew in with a team on Tuesday in one of our Metros and some special equipment we'd had made locally in Bahrain and some provided by Airbus.
Using a USAF D9 Caterpillar pulling a 100 metre cable fitted to the back end of each bogie and a nice new aircraft pushback tug with a towbar on the nose gear, we were able to remove the aircraft just on dusk on Tuesday night and  towed it to an Iraqi Airways graveyard on one side of the terminal.

We stayed overnight in the USAF camp on the airport and went back to the aircraft on Wednesday morning to allow the insurance survey to be completed and then secure the aircraft.

Basically, LH engine rotates in a fashion, has ingested lots of razor wire and is knackered. RH engine has seized, probably from ingesting loads of sand at maximum reverse thrust and inlet cowl has unacceptable lip damage,
probably from hitting the razor wire fence posts.

The No 8 axle appears to be cracked as the wheel sits at an odd angle.

The bulk of the damage is the LH wing. About 3 metres of rear spar is missing in front of the outboard flap, the wing has bulged upwards and
downwards where the initial explosion appears to have occurred, one O/B flap track is hanging in the breeze and one has a small piece of flap still attached, the rest of the flap is nonexistent.

The pics show the huge crack that has occurred to the rear spar inboard of where the spar has burnt away, possibly from loads on the wing during the landing process.

The front spar appears to be intact.

The point of entry pics show where a projectile entered Tank 1A, which was full of fuel, and, after it ignited, proceeded to burn away at the spar.

The fuel tank ribs in the area directly in front of the O/B flap are burnt almost 50% through.

The crew obviously did a fantastic job in getting the aircraft back on to the ground and one can only assume that it was most fortunate that they were not aware of the state of the wing as they could not see it from the cockpit.

It also says a lot for the structure of the aircraft that it withstood the impact of the (whatever is finally determined to have hit it).

I'm sure there will be lots of other photos and videos flying around the net, but at least these ones are genuine.

The worst part for us was the airport was shut down on Wednesday and we had to be driven in an armour-plated Landcruiser Troop Carrier from Baghdad to Balad, 60 miles to the north, from where we flew back to Bahrain in our Metro again.

I trust you will all appreciate just how lucky these guys were.

Regards,
Ashley.

Ashley Northcott,
Technical Director,
DHL International Aviation,
Bahrain.
Ph: +973 328533  Fax: +973 328535  Mob: +973 9602717

damn.. talk about taking a licking and keep on ticking,,!

wanted to add if this is your report for us then damn arfcom has people EVERYWHERE!!

take care man

Thanks

A couple of these were posted earlier today, but thanks for the others and the very candid report from the landing site.

I asked in the previous thread about the registration of the incident jet. In one of the pictures, the registration is almost legible under the stricken wing. It looks to me like the registration is OA-DLL, but OA is Peru. That doesn't make sense. OD is Lebanon, right? I can't imagine DHL using a Lebanese registration, either, though. Would like to know if you can find out.

Registration number is OO-DLL.

I am only the cut and paste forward guy.

That wing doesn't look so good.

GWB has some stones.

Belgian. Thanks.

What a badass flight crew...

That is absolutley amazing. Airplanes are awesome machines and can work under rigorous conditions.

This just proves that Airbus has their shit together!!!!(have to know me to understand it)

I bet the pucker factor was at an all time high!!!

Rob

No doubt!  It's amazing the amount of damage some aircraft are able to absorb and remain aloft!

Personally I'm not a fan of Scarebus (Airbus) products, but I must give a hearty salute and props to the crew for landing and getting out safely.  One question that begs my mind is, how did they lose all hydraulics?  Damage seems to be located to the outboard portion of the left wing.  Were no hydraulic fuses tripped to stop the fluid loss?  Do they have three power control actuators (pca's) in the aileron?  Granted loads were tremendous to crack the rear spar.  All in all a tremendous effort by the crew, and a testament to modern commercial avation.
Still, If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going.

boeing, sound made when hitting the ground, ei, boing...

what a mess

It's only an Airbus.  No great loss.  DHL should know better...buy Boeing or don't fly!

Glad the crew made a landing they could walk away from!


It's disturbing that a hit to ONE wing would cause a total loss of hydraulics.  Sounds like a POS design to me, if that's how Airbus designs their hydraulic systems!  I thought that EVERY aircraft in the transport category had at least two independent hydraulic systems, left and right, that could be isolated from each other on demand?  Some have TRIPLE redundancy, if I remember right!

A scrapped Airbus is a bonanza for an aluminum recycler.    A scrapped Boeing is a crying shame.

Yeah, I'm big into the "Buy American, fly American" mindset.   I don't fly very often, but I've been known to check and make sure that the flights I've scheduled were on BOEING products. I've never flown on an eurotrash Airbus and probably never will unless there is no other reasonable alternative.

CJ

If it was a Boeing product it would of had balance panels and aileron positioning tabs instead of hydraulics for the ailerons.

There might have been damage beyond where any shut-off valves (isolation valves) were located, the actual valves themselves might have been damaged or (as in the case of the Boeing 707) there might have been a hydraulic system (leading edge slats - Boeing 707) that does not have a system isolation valve.
(been there, done that, had a slat actuator blow a seal and it dumped the hydraulic system in no time)