Wheel falls on Expressway. Training aircraft landed safely.

Aircraft wheel falls on Southern Expressway .... aircraft made to land safely to Ratmalana

The mishap which the aircraft that faced this Saturday morning was something of a rare incident. It is understood that a wheel of an aircraft of a private aircraft training school in Ratmalana had got dislodged this morning and had fallen on to the Southern Expressway. Subsequently the trainee pilot of the aircraft had maintained communication with the air traffic control centre of
Ratmalana continuously and landed the aircraft with caution to the Ratmalana army camp runway and had thus been able to bring it to a halt without any damage.

This light aircraft known as Cessna 152 belonging to Millenium (Pvt) Co, had been operating for purposes of training its pilots this morning.

After being air-borne, the wheel on the left had all of a sudden fallen onto Paragastota area, Milleniya, Bandaragama along the Southern Expressway. An eye witness said that the wheel was seen falling from the sky.

Though the act of bringing it to the runway and make it land there minus one wheel was something dangerous, the pilot of the aircraft nevertheless had been successful in bringing it to the runway by obeying instructions issued from the control centre.

The fire rescue team of the Air Force and the Disaster Management team had been ready in order to control whatever harm may result if an accident takes place and to rescue the pilot and co-pilots while it has been able to land the light aircraft  without any complaint because the speed of the aircraft was brought under control, the fact that it was a light aircraft and also because of the skill of the pilot himself.

Wing Commander Gihan Seneviratna, Air Force Spokesman said that it was possible to land the aircraft successfully at Ratmalana Airport due to the capability of the pilot concerned.