VietNamNet Bridge - The missing wheel of an ATR72 aircraft of Vietnam Airlines was found on October 25 in Cat Bi Airport in Hai Phong province, where the plane took off.

Aviation authorities keep searching for VN Airlines plane’s missing wheel

The wheel was found in the afternoon of October 25, about 1.144m from the runway. This is the grassy area, which is under aircraft whenever they take off. The wheel is small, just a little bigger than the wheel of a motorcycle so it was not easy to find it.

The incident which occurred for the Vietnam Airlines ATR72 aircraft stirred up the aviation sector. Although it did not cause serious consequences in terms of property and humans, it is classified by the authorities as serious, which requires deep investigation.

The plane with 41 passengers took off from Cat Bi Airport and landed safely at 14h15 pm in Da Nang Airport on October 21, despite the lack of a front wheel.

Since October 21, a team of up to 30 people were assigned to search for the missing wheel in an area of around 3 km in radius from the runway at the Cat Bi airport and another team made search within 15km in Da Nang Airport.

Earlier, experts of the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) guessed that the wheel fell off when the plane took off. As the aircraft does not have a tire warning system, the crew did not know when the wheel fell off.

CAAV’s Head--Lai Xuan Thanh, said the wheel and the broken shaft will be sent to France for investigation. It is known that this is the first incident of its kind happening for ATR72 aircraft.

Na Son