An aircraft belonging to the Sevenair Group came to an inelegant halt without its landing gear down, forcing the emergency closure of a runway at Tires Municipal Aerodrome in Cascais.
The aircraft was on a training flight, controlled by an instructor with over 23,000 flying hours.
Purchased in 2011, the Sevenair training aircraft was said to be in good condition - apart from the landing gear failure, clearly.
The last serious incident involving a Sevenair flight was in June 2016, over the Alentejo.
The Pilatus PC-6 aircraft cracked up in mid-air and crashed, killing the Belgian pilot and seriously injured two of the seven on board.
In today’s incident, despite the lack of wheels hitting the tarmac, the underside of the aircraft did not suffer too much damage and the crew of two, an instructor and a trainee, were not injured.
Officials at the aviation school said the aircraft will be back in service within the month.
In December 2010, an Aero VIP* Dornier DO 228 on the Lisbon-Vila Real-Bragança route, was on final approach to Bragança at around 17:20 local time. There was snowfall and fog at the time. The airplane got too low and the nose gear cut a power line. The crew went around and landed the aircraft safely. The aircraft was not damaged and no injuries occurred. The incident left 2,000 customers without electricity for two hours.
In December 2015, Sevenair won the contact to run an Aero VIP passenger service between Portimão and Bragança in the north of Portugal which includes a stop at Cascais.
In April 2016, an AeroVIP Dornier DO-228 suffered catastrophic damage to one of its two engines as a flight came in to land at Cascais aerodrome.
At an altitude of around 100 feet, the engine was hit by a passing seagull which was sucked into the machinery. The engine stopped on impact and the captain immediately followed emergency procedure and feathered the propeller blades, landing safely with 11 passengers on board.
The flight had taken off from Bragança on April 14th and was heading to Vila Real with stops at Viseu and Cascais.
In June 2017, a Sevenair Dornier DO-228, with 14 people on board, was coming in to land at the Cascais aerodrome and, at 300 metres above ground level, missed a drone by five metres. The aircraft had taken off from Portimão and was heading north with 12 passengers and two crew on board.
* Aero VIP is part of the Seven Air Group
