The Place

Steam Racket must have been reading this. . . The Ben-My-Chree broke down today and had to turn back

The Ben my Chree arrived back in Douglas at around 3.15pm - seven and a half hours after she set out.

She left on time at 8am for the scheduled crossing to Birkenhead, but had to turn back around two and a half hours into the trip after suffering technical problems with one of her engines.

This also meant the vessel only had one bow thrust unit and because of the nature of berthing at Birkenhead, the Master of the vessel took the decision to return to Douglas on safety grounds.

Chief Executive of the Steam Packet, Mark Woodward, says tonight was a planned maintenance session for the Ben so that will now be used to fully assess the issue and passengers will be updated later about tomorrow’s scheduled 8am Birkenhead service.

There were 240 passengers on board the Ben and 150 passengers were booked on this afternoon’s scheduled 2pm return service which was cancelled.

Passengers are being helped to transfer to other sailings and with overnight accommodation where necessary.

Mr Woodward says: 'Fortunately, technical issues that force a vessel to return to port are extremely rare and we apologise for any inconvenience this has caused to our passengers.’

At least it didnt crash.

Investigation summary

The aircraft’s right main landing gear failed as it landed on Runway 26 at Isle of Man Airport. The right main landing gear detached, the aircraft slid along the runway on its remaining landing gears, right wingtip and luggage pannier and came to rest on the grass adjacent to the runway. The passengers and crew vacated the aircraft without injury. The mechanism to final failure is not yet fully understood, but was initiated as a result of stress corrosion cracking in the forward yoke pintle at the top of the right main landing gear leg. One Safety Recommendation is made.

http://t.co/Rb3jj4zW

Oh well, that's comforting to know

Apparently the nature of the corrosion crack shows it must have been there since at least before the landing gear was last inspected... So heads could roll!

mcmaiering wrote:So heads could roll!

Shame the same couldn't be said for the wheels

didn't touch it !!!!!

didn't touch it !!!!


just come back from Jersey, to fix a plane with a cracked wing !