Nose Gear Collapse Damages C-130 at Little Rock Air Force Base

The nose gear of a C-130J Super Hercules collapsed on the Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, flight line Tuesday, according to the Air Force.

The cargo aircraft, assigned to Air Education and Training Command's 314th Airlift Wing, sustained damage because of the breakdown, said base spokeswoman Lt. Jessica Cicchetto.

No one was injured during the incident, Cicchetto said.

"The C-130 remains grounded pending a damage assessment. Operational safety is a top priority for Little Rock Air Force Base, and an investigation will be conducted to determine the cause of the incident," she said in an email.

Related: Recent C-5 Nose Gear Mishap Unrelated to 2017 Equipment Issue, Air Force Says

Photos of the aircraft's crippled nose gear first surfaced on the popular Air Force Facebook page Amn/Nco/Snco.

The latest incident comes after more than 100 C-130s, both H and J variants, recently went through careful maintenance inspections.

The service in August completed examinations of its C-130s after about a quarter of the cargo plane fleet was grounded for precautionary inspections related to wing cracks.

Gen. Maryanne Miller, head of Air Mobility Command, ordered 123 of 450 C-130 models on Air Force flight lines to be stood down earlier that month as a safety precaution after "atypical cracks were discovered on the lower center wing joint," also known as the rainbow fitting.

Nose-gear mishaps have happened within the transport fleet before.

In July 2017, the Air Force stopped all C-5M Super Galaxy operations from Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, after two aircraft experienced nose-gear malfunctions overseas. Separate incidents involving aircraft from Dover occurred May 22 and July 15 at Naval Station Rota, Spain, that year.

Crews scrambled to get spare parts to fix that problem, which was determined to be "a screw-type mechanism that allows [the nose of the aircraft] to basically spin down and spin back up," according to Gen. Carlton Everhart II, then-AMC commander.

A C-5 had to make an emergency landing with its nose gear up earlier this year. But maintainers and engineers ruled that the Jan. 31 mishap was unrelated to the previous standdown.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

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