Ronald K., a reader in England, sent me these photographs of a recent incident. He writes:
It seems the Harrier vertical take-off and landing jet in these pictures had trouble with its landing gear. Since it has the capability to land vertically, some quick-thinking ground staff built a platform of mattresses (presumably stripped from the local barracks) for it to land on. It worked, too – except for a mattress being sucked into the air intake!
It must have been quite a sight to see! If I were the mattress manufacturer, I’d be planning a major advertising campaign using these photographs.
Peter
EDITED TO ADD: In August 2010 this post was linked by someone at Reddit, producing tens of thousands of visits to this blog. One of the commenters on Reddit linked to a Dutch forum which gave more details of the accident, which may be read here. It turns out to be quite a funny story!
Good thinking! I feel a little bad for the fitters who’ll no doubt have to replace the engine on that aircraft. See, it isn’t a matter of opening a few doors and dropping it out the bottom, no, not English enough, you have to remove the entire wing!
wow! that’s the coolest thing!
One would think that this couldn’t be the first time a Harrier has had landing gear failure, and that someone could have developed a less damaging procedure for it by now.
Good thinking on the ground crew’s part, though.
Good thinking? More like retarded. http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/military/read.main/98013/