By Sentinel Staff
Landing gear on an inbound Guardian Flight plane caught fire at the Sitka airport Wednesday afternoon. One first responder was taken to the hospital, with apparently non-critical injuries.
The plane’s crew had radioed Sitka Flight Service Station about 3:30 p.m. to report damaged landing gear. When the small twin turbo prop airplane was on the runway, state Department of Transportation personnel saw the left landing gear was on fire, Sam Dapcevich, DOT information officer, told the Sentinel.
The state’s two Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting trucks responded and were spraying water on the wheels when a Sitka Fire Department fire truck, ambulance and support vehicle arrived to stand by.
“Any time there is an emergency at the airport, they call us in case they need support,” Fire Chief Craig Warren said. In this case, no additional help was needed.
A member of the DOT Maintenance and Operations crew was the only one injured, Dapcevich said.
A mechanical issue led to the fire, Dapcevich said.
“Guardian had a mechanic on board and they were testing a problem with their brakes, or their landing gear, so it sounds like they were dealing with a mechanical issue and the brakes overheated and caught on fire,” he said.
Two and a half truckloads of water were needed to fight the conflagration and cool the landing gear. The aircraft was towed from the runway after a crew installed a new tire on the damaged landing gear, he added. The runway was reopened by 5:45 p.m., just in time for the Alaska Airlines passenger flight.
Dapcevich said that the incident occurred at a fortunate time. The DOT crew was already on the scene before the event took place.
“It turned out to be a good scenario, because our crew was all there, painting the runway,” he said.
The runway itself was not damaged.
