Continental Express and American Eagle experienced landing gear problems in the last week.
American Eagle Flight 4539, an Embraer EMB-135, missed its first approach when airfield crews saw sparks during the landing at Boston’s Logan Airport before the crew pulled up on June 20. A week later, an ExpressJet (XJT) ERJ-145 bound from Nashville to Houston was forced to divert Flight 2175 because the landing gear would not retract on departure. The 8:30 am flight landed at McGhee Tyson at Knoxville, where XJT has a maintenance facility, on June 28. The airline swapped aircraft and continued the flight at 10:30 am.
Flight 4539 was inbound from Toronto and the nose gear doors were open when it touched down the first time. Just as the aircraft touched down debris fell away from the aircraft during the 8:20 a.m. incident. As the aircraft did two fly-bys, controllers could see no visible damage to the gear.
The National Transportation Safety Board said in its preliminary report the crew reported an indication that the gear was down and locked but right before touchdown, they noticed a landing gear lever disagree. They executed a go-around and mechanically lowered the landing gear. They were able to get the gear down and locked and got a visual confirmation that the gear was down. The flaps would not extend owing to damage from contacting the runway on the initial landing, but the crew was able to successfully land the airplane. There were 37 passengers and three crew members on board. No injuries were reported.