Lufthansa crew injured as Boeing 787-9 nose gear collapses at Frankfurt airport

A Lufthansa Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner collapsed onto its nose at Gate A15 in Frankfurt airport while crews were preparing it for a Los Angeles flight, sending four workers to hospital and forcing the cancellation of LH450.

The incident happened at about 12:45 p.m. local time on June 4, about an hour before the scheduled 1:50 p.m. departure. No passengers had boarded yet, but crew members and ground staff were on the aircraft when the front landing gear suddenly retracted, leaving the jet partly resting on its belly and drawing emergency vehicles to the scene.

Bloomberg identified the aircraft as registration D-ABPQ and said two cabin crew members and two service-company employees were slightly injured and taken to hospital. Lufthansa later said several employees had received medical treatment. Reuters and AP said the airline canceled the flight and reaccommodated passengers on other services.

The aircraft was a very recent addition to Lufthansa’s long-haul fleet, delivered in January 2026 and placed into service in February 2026. Flight history data showed it had already flown multiple intercontinental sectors in the days before the collapse, including Frankfurt-Austin and Frankfurt-Delhi, before returning to Frankfurt for the Los Angeles departure.

What makes the episode significant is not only the disruption, but the mechanics of the failure. Jeff Guzzetti, a former U.S. federal crash investigator, called a nose landing gear collapse while an aircraft is stationary “very unusual.” In a case like this, investigators will want to know whether the problem began with maintenance work, a faulty component, a manufacturing issue, or a ground-handling error at the gate.

That inquiry is likely to include maintenance records, system logs, inspection history and the sequence of events around the stand at Gate A15. Boeing said it was aware of the incident and supporting Lufthansa, while Lufthansa said technicians and support staff were on site and that it was investigating the exact circumstances with the relevant authorities.

There is also a clear precedent. In 2021, a British Airways Boeing 787-8 at Heathrow suffered a similar parked-aircraft nose-gear retraction during maintenance testing, and the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch later found that a locking pin had been inserted into the wrong position. That case showed how a seemingly contained ground-side event can expose a serious lapse in procedure without involving a midair emergency.

For Lufthansa, the immediate public harm was limited because the cabin was still empty. For investigators, the larger question is whether D-ABPQ’s collapse was an isolated failure on a single new aircraft or a warning sign about the checks, handling and safeguards that protect widebody jets at the gate.