The German-based carrier, Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 Frankfurt to Miami flight returned to base amid hydraulic problems. Lufthansa (LH) Boeing 747-8 took off from Frankfurt at 10:50 CEST and crossed Ireland. However, the pilot decided to return to Frankfurt amid mechanical problems associated with the hydraulic system. After dumping fuel over the Celtic Sea to avoid heavy landing, flight LH462 returned to Frankfurt Airport. The Radarbox spotted the aircraft track and shared them on Twitter.
Lufthansa flight #LH462 from Frankfurt to Miami is returning to Frankfurt: https://t.co/Vsfwk8YKyd ✈️#Lufthansa #Frankfurt #Miami #Diversion pic.twitter.com/sZh0U3rG4L
— RadarBox (@RadarBoxCom) April 3, 2023
Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 Emergency landing Avherald reported the incident and stated, During its flight from Frankfurt/Main, Germany to Miami, FL, USA, a Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 aircraft with registration D-ABYG encountered a hydraulic problem while en route to Oceanic Airspace over the Atlantic Ocean, about 220 nautical miles northwest of Shannon, Ireland.
As a result, the crew decided to return to Frankfurt. After receiving a revised flight plan from dispatch, the plane climbed to FL350 but had to dump fuel at altitude as it was too heavy to land in Frankfurt. The aircraft descended to FL310 for the fuel dump and was then vectored to fly southwards before the coast of Ireland. After dumping the fuel, the plane returned to Frankfurt and landed with open gear doors on runway 07C. The plane landed approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes after deciding to return to Frankfurt.
Boeing 747-8 Problems
Earlier in 2014, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a new airworthiness directive for specific Boeing 747-8 and 747-8F planes powered by certain General Electric Co engines. The directive mandates the replacement of faulty software with an improved version. This was the fourth such directive issued for the 747-8, and it applied to seven aircraft in the US. Similar to the latest incident, A Polar Air Cargo Boeing 747-8 freighter, registration N857GT performed flight PO-213 from Cincinnati, KY (USA) to Tokyo Narita (Japan). When it was nearing the top of descent towards Tokyo about 40 minutes prior to the estimated landing when the crew reported a hydraulic failure. The aircraft continued for a safe landing on runway 16R and stopped on the runway with open gear doors. Another incident involved QR, Qatar Airways Boeing 747-8F suffered the hydraulic system 1 failure when the aircraft was descending towards Doha. The hydraulic system failure had depleted all its hydraulic fluid. The three-year-old Boeing 747-8F, with registration A7-BGB, was inspected by the engineers. The inspection determined that engine number 1 needs to be replaced.