SHAH ALAM: A Hercules from the 20th Squadron on a temporary detachment to the Labuan airbase, belly landed at the runway, yesterday. The aircraft M30-14 landed on its belly as it could not lower its starboard rear landing gear likely to a technical fault.
The Defence Ministry, in a statement, said the pilot of the military transport aircraft, C130 Hercules, was forced to land without tyres at 5.15pm, after circling for six hours to burn off fuel.
“The military aircraft was unable to land normally at the airport in Labuan due to its malfunction landing gear.
“The aircraft made the emergency landing after circling the airspace for six hours. It has landed safely.”
The pilot and crew on board were unhurt.
The Hercules had just took off for a training flight to Kuching when the landing gear failure was detected. The aircraft was on a temporary detachment to Labuan likely to ensure that 14th Squadron had enough aircraft to complete its operational tasking. As you are aware the squadron will have extra tasking for Eks Paradise 4/2017 which starts on Nov 14 and ends on Nov 26.
There is no word yet whether the Hercules fleet have been grounded pending investigation following the emergency landing of tail number 14.
There is also no word yet whether tail number 14 could be repaired though from the pictures the damage is minimal. Tail number 14 is among the five white tail H30 variant Hercules purchased in 1993, delivered in 1995 from Lockheed Martin.
The Hercules safety record in RMAF service has been exemplary so far with only a single aircraft written off. Tail number 03 was written off after it skidded from the runway while landing at Sibu airport on Aug. 25.1990.
*edited to add new information regarding the flight.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (21)
Looks like she escaped relatively unschathed. Good job to the crews to bring back the airplane in 1 piece. As the damage is relatively minor, this would be repaired and put back into service. Airod has repaired and put back into service hercules with even worse damage than this before.
BTW the last hercules buy by TUDM, was it 5 or 6 aircrafts? Right now we have 14 hercules, 1st batch of 6 in 1976, the 3 maritime patrol C-130H-MP (camar) in 1979/80 and the new batch of C-130H-30 long body white tails. The tail number run up till M30-16 (there is strangely no M30-13)
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There is one H30 bought in 1991. In 1995 we bought five more H30s, the white tails,
@ marhalim
I see, that explains it. Thanks marhalim.
Can't see any wrinkles on the fuselage skin which is one of the indicators for damaged fuselage so I presume the Herky's is repairable and will be probably flying again in a year or two.Thumbs up to the crews for bringing back the bird and themselves in one piece and It will be interesting to see whether the Herky will be repaired in situ or back at Airod.
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Airod got a facility at Labuan AB so they can fix it the airframe there. They don't have an engine shop there though so those must be send back to Airod facility at Subang
alhamdulillah...kudos to the pilot and crew
AIf my memory did not fail me, there was another crash whereby the plane caught fire upon landing n was a total write off
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I think you're referring to the Hercules that skidded off the runway at the Sibu airport which I mentioned in the story. Probably that's what happened to the aircraft. Anyhow I knew of only one other Hercules incident which was not reported. I was at Airod around 2003-2006 I cannot remember exactly, where I ran into a Hercules though I cannot remember what tail number. I asked whether the aircraft was undergoing scheduled maintenance. I was told it came in after a heavy landing at an airfield. They initially thought it was only a minor damage but checks showed it suffered serious damage that it needed some work on it before it could be flown to Subang for major repairs
More on malaysian hercules discussed here
https://www.malaysiandefence.com/france-looking-at-c130j-hercules-as-a400m-is-delayed/
@ marhalim
The airframe you mentioned is one of the C-130H-MPs, skidded in kuching and landed in a ditch. It was badly broken just behind the cockpit. Airod repaired the aircraft back into service, and later used this experience to repair another crashed hercules (ex Tunisian AF Hercules. BTW is it still in airod waiting for a buyer to be found?)
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I don't think it's the Kuching one as the incident happened at an airbase in the peninsula. There are two Hercules waiting for a buyer at Airod, one is probably the Tunisian one and the other the one which was salvaged from a desert in Libya. They completed that one just before the troubles in Libya. If I remember correctly there was also another Hercules which had its front end replaced after it hit a hangar after it jumped the chocks while undergoing engine checks.
If I'm not mistaken the C-130 which jumped the chocks was a PC-130H under the control of a technician to manouvre the aircraft on ground for maintenance. The cockpit section was badly damaged from the impact with the hangar wall. Airod grafted a 'new' cockpit section onto the fuselage of the PC-130H. The replacement cockpit section was probably obtained from a mothballed C-130 from the US.
Subsequent to the incident, the RMAF disallowed technicians ( including from the MRO service providers ) to manouvre on ground a powered aircraft. Only type rated pilot is allowed to do so.
Afaik the tunisian ones were sold to philippines
rmaf can prolly absorb the unsold hercs into its fleet.
So the C-130H-MP is the one hitting the hangar, i think i might have confused the sibu crash as the kuching one? So I stand corrected on that one.
The tunisian one was supposed to be sold to the philippines, but they bought ex USMC/US Navy C-130T instead.