On Sunday, Ryanair flight FR5542 from Liverpool to Dublin suffered a nose gear failure on landing around 5:30 p.m. local time.

The Boeing 737-800 (registration EI-DHH) touched down on runway 28L, veered to the left off of the runway, but pilots managed to get the aircraft back onto the runway. Air traffic control instructed the arriving aircraft behind it to perform a go-around while cockpit crew of the Ryanair flight sought guidance on whether their aircraft was on fire or emitting smoke. It wasn’t. Emergency crew met the plane.

#Ongoing Yesterday (April 9) Ryanair Flight FR5542, a B-737, was involved in an incident in Dublin, (Ireland). First reports state jet had a nose gear failure during the landing rollout on runway 28. Updates when possible. pic.twitter.com/CeAE2H7FPU

— Air Safety #OTD by Francisco Cunha (@OnDisasters) April 10, 2023

#Thread Picture Update Source @SeamusjKearney pic.twitter.com/0ECfcuBr8P

— Air Safety #OTD by Francisco Cunha (@OnDisasters) April 10, 2023

The occurrence aircraft remains on the ground in Dublin two days later. The obligatory comment since this was Ryanair is that passengers on board didn’t pay the extra landing gear fear online when purchasing their tickets?

A landing gear problem is only one of two real emergencies I’ve experienced first hand in nearly five decades of flying (the other was a bird strike). One of my early flight memories is of traveling as an unaccompanied minor from Los Angeles (where my dad lived) home to New York. The captain announced that we were circling the airport on arrival because they couldn’t get a landing gear down. Emergency services foamed a runway. It’s been nearly four decades so I’m fuzzy on whether the gear eventually went down, or it turned out merely to be the failure of an indicator and the gear was in fact down the entire time. But we landed safely, without incident.

It’s unclear what caused the landing gear issue on this Ryanair flight (insufficient ancillary revenue was not a factor). But it’s a testament to the pilots that they recovered from it well.