A Delta Air Lines aircraft's nose gear failed to retract during its flight yesterday. The MD-90 was then ordered to return to Philadelphia soon after departing.

Quick return

AV Herald reports that aircraft registration N934DN was climbing out of Philadelphia International Airport's runway 27L to reach Atlanta. However, the crew soon contacted the departing airport to inform them that they could not retract the plane's nose gear.

Before crew shared news of the issue, flight DL-776 was cleared to fly to 12,000 feet. However, the jet soon needed to proceed at a lower speed of 210 KIAS and the flight was instructed to climb to 5,000 feet.

Subsequently, in order to burn off fuel, the MD-90 entered a hold. The pilots then made a safe landing on the same runway that they left from an hour before. Thereafter, the 151 passengers remained on the ground for five and a half hours. The flight then left for Atlanta again with no reported further incidents.

Similar events

For the second time this year, a Delta MD-90 operating at Atlanta had to make a return due to its landing gear. Two months ago, Flight DL-1412 had to turn back to Hartsfield–Jackson soon after departing for Cincinnati due to gear not retracting.

Earlier this year, a Myanmar National Airlines Embraer 190 landed without its nose gear. This time, the nose gear would not deploy due to a malfunction so it made an emergency landing. Thankfully there were no injuries to the crew or passengers on the flight.

There was also a glitch involving an aircraft's nose gear on a Singapore Airlines A380 earlier this year. Flight AQ406 experienced a hydraulic issue while flying from Singapore, causing crew to order a hard landing in Delhi. There were no injuries to any of the 228 passengers who disembarked at Indira Gandhi International Airport. However, the plane had to go through 16 hours of repair.

Crew appreciation

There has been a series of incidents involving nose gear on aircraft this year, potentially causing serious implications. Therefore, crew must be commended on their ability to make swift decisions during these unexpected incidents.

Simple Flying reached out to Delta for comment on the weekend's incident. A spokesperson confirmed that maintenance workers fixed the issue of the gear and gave an apology to the passengers that were on the flight.

“Delta flight 776 returned to Philadelphia due to a maintenance issue," The spokesperson said.

"The aircraft landed without incident and taxied to the gate where maintenance technicians serviced the aircraft. Following repairs and an inspection, customers departed for Atlanta. We apologize to customers for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

Have you ever been involved in an incident due to a nose gear issue? Let us know your thoughts on these events in the comment section.