Airbus A330 Landed Without a Nose Gear, Sparks on Runway and Passengers Evacuated

by Gary Leff

Saudia flight SV3818 from Medina, Saudi Arabia to Dhaka, Bangladesh reached 37,000 feet when the crew diverted to Jeddah. It made a go-around on its first approach because a landing gear hadn’t gone down.

Then the aircraft circled for an hour while it worked through emergency checklists. Ultimately they decided to land without the Airbus A330-200’s nose gear deployed.

Here’s the original video of the landing that’s been circulating.

The aircraft landed successfully on runway 34R about four and a half hours after takeoff from Medina. The aircraft skidded, producing sparks, and came to a stop. Passengers were evacuated from the aircraft and no one appears to have been injured (other than the A330 registration TC-OCH, of course).

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I wonder how much harder it is to keep the A330 nose up like Jetblue 320 did most of the length of their similar landing awhile back.

  2. I’m sorry the pax didn’t even have a chance to drink some booze before this the landing as it circled for an hour

  3. This from the airline that landed flight 163 safely and then let all the passengers and crew die in the ensuing fire while the aircraft sat on the ground in the 23 minutes that followed. Hard pass on Saudia.

  4. I suspect the runway was damaged too. Can’t drag metal against concrete or asphalt at that speed for that distanced with that much weight pressing down and not do some kind of damage.

  5. Nothing like the Iran Air landing Oct 30, 2015 with a Boeing 727. It was perfection at best, landing with no nose gear and not a single spark. Don’t know how that would equate with an A330-200. At least no one was hurt on either of the two incidents.

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