The length of his flight was certainly not going to challenge any endurance records. Enough fuel was pumped into the tanks to get them there and back, with plenty in reserve. As he was returning to Elmendorf, Kuhr and his crew noted the left main landing actuator had seized, preventing the left landing gear from lowering.
While it’s obvious not having all of the aircraft’s landing gear extending during a landing is a bad thing, it’s something else to imagine a peg-legged jet doing pirouettes or cartwheels down the runway. Perhaps reflecting on what Capt. Al Haynes experienced many years before in the cockpit of a DC-10 airliner, Kuhr pooled his resources to develop a plan to increase the odds of survival for his passenger and crew.
The first resource available was time. The engines were running smoothly, the airspace had been cleared and crash rescue could be safely pre-positioned. Radio calls could be relayed through telephone conversations to experts on how best to respond to this emergency. There was no published procedure in the operator’s manual, nor had any kind of training developed " let alone practiced " for this emergency.
After burning off as much fuel as possible and making several low passes over the Elmendorf runway to rehearse the landing, at 10 feet over the runway threshold, Kuhr cut the throttles and armed the firewall shutoff valves. He then ever so gently eased the Cessna to the asphalt.
For 1,400 feet, the jet slid down the runway centerline, sending a shower of sparks from the left wing as it scraped along the ground. “You don’t normally push the rudder to full-stop, but we made sure we got every millimeter of opposite rudder our Cessna would give us in those final moments,” Kuhr said.
Kuhr attributed successfully landing the aircraft to the training he’d received and the solid support he’d been given by his crew and others on the ground. After receiving his Broken Wing Award in a ceremony held Jan. 25, he placed the award on his office desk and quickly prepared for another flight that afternoon. Because of Kuhr’s dedicated airmanship when faced with his emergency, he and his crew survived to fly another day.
Editorial note: Please include the attached photos (Kuhr6); the caption should read, “CW5 Paul Kuhr receives the U.S. Army Broken Wing Award during a ceremony at the Alaska Regional Flight Center (RFC) on Jan. 25, 2011. Presenting the award is Col. Michael E. Bobeck (left in photo), then Commander of the Operational Support Airlift Agency and Maj. G. Jeffrey Wingblade, the RFC Commander (right in photo). Kuhr (center in photo) earned the Broken Wing Award for his superior airmanship in successfully landing a UC-35 jet when the landing gear wouldn’t extend, resulting in minimal damage to the aircraft and no injuries to his crew or passengers.” Photo taken by LTC Steven L. Nicolucci.
CW5 Mark W. Grapin is an Aviation and Ground Safety Specialist with the Army National Guard Directorate in Arlington, VA. He is a past winner of the DASAF Composite Risk Management Award, three-time winner of the FORSCOM Commander’s coin for Safety Program Excellence and the 2007 winner of the Army Aviation Association of America (AAAA) Aviation Safety Officer of the Year award.
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