Several weeks ago, I covered a bizarre incident at Frankfurt Airport (FRA), where a Lufthansa Dreamliner had a gear collapse at its gate, causing some injuries. Suffice it to say, seeing a plane’s gear collapse at a gate is mighty unusual, and shouldn’t happen. A report has now revealed what happened… it’s exactly what I suspected.
Lufthansa Boeing 787 nose gear collapses at gate
On June 4, 2026, a Lufthansa Boeing 787-9 suffered a nose gear collapse at Frankfurt Airport (FRA). The plane in question has the registration code D-ABPQ, and it’s a new Dreamliner with Allegris interiors.
There’s even an airport CCTV video of the collapse happening.
As you can see, at the time of the accident, the unit load device (ULD) was attached to the forward right cargo hold, along with the two jet bridges being pulled up to the two forward left doors. You can also see the landing gear panel ripped off.
This plane just entered long haul service with Lufthansa on February 13, 2026, so it had been flying for under four months at the time of the accident. The plane had landed in Frankfurt at around 9AM that morning, after operating an overnight flight from Austin (AUS). Hours later, the plane was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles (LAX), operating as flight LH450. However, as you’d expect, the flight was canceled.
Presumably this plane will be out of service for quite some time. Talk about bad timing, as this happened right at the beginning of the peak summer travel period.
What caused this Dreamliner nose landing gear collapse?
The German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU) has just released its interim report on this accident.
The first thing worth noting is that there were more injuries than initially believed. As it turns out, there were two serious injuries, and 21 minor injuries. I hope everyone makes a full recovery. As you can see in the CCTV footage, someone was very close to the gear when it collapsed, so this could’ve had an even worse ending.
So, what happened here? The evening before the accident, a maintenance request was filed for the aircraft, based on an error message related to the landing gear. While in Frankfurt, technicians tried to troubleshoot the issue, which required performing some landing gear tests.
When these tests are performed, it’s really important that the nose landing gear downlock pin is inserted into the nose gear, to prevent the nose gear from retracting. As it turns out, the technicians forgot to insert that pin. According to the report, the lacking pin for the nose landing gear was not inserted into the designated hole, and also wasn’t located anywhere close to the nose landing gear. Instead, it was found in the storage box where these pins are ordinarily placed. Yowzers, someone has some explaining to do.
I don’t think this outcome is terribly surprising. When I first saw the pictures and videos of what happened, the first thing that came to mind is how similar this looked to an incident in June 2021, where the nose landing gear collapsed on a British Airways Boeing 787-8.
An investigation later determined how that happened:
- While the plane was being loaded with cargo, a procedure was being carried out with regards to some deferred maintenance
- The procedure required the cockpit landing gear selection lever to be cycled with hydraulic power applied to the aircraft
- To prevent the landing gear from retracting, the procedure required pins to be inserted into the nose and main landing gear downlocks
- The nose landing gear downlock pin was accidentally inserted into the wrong hole — it was put into the apex pin bore, adjacent to the correct location
- As a result, when the landing gear selector was cycled, the nose landing gear retracted
So while this is slightly different — the pin wasn’t inserted anywhere, rather than just being inserted into the wrong hole — the end result was the same.
Bottom line
In early June, a Lufthansa Boeing 787 suffered a forward gear collapse at a gate at Frankfurt Airport, prior to a flight to Los Angeles, injuring nearly two dozen people. An interim investigation has now been published, revealing what happened. Maintenance was being performed on the plane’s landing gear, and that required conducting some tests.
When these tests are performed, a pin needs to be inserted into the nose gear, to prevent exactly this scenario from playing out. However, that pin was nowhere to be found, as clearly the technicians forgot to use it. This is only an interim report, so now the big question is how something so obvious could be forgotten.
What do you make of this Lufthansa 787 gear collapse situation?