Cargolux Orders Checks on Every 747-8F After LX-VCF’s Left Landing Gear Collapses on a Parked Stand

The left main landing gear of Cargolux Boeing 747-8F LX-VCF collapsed on the morning of Friday, October 23, 2026, while the freighter stood on its parking stand at Luxembourg Airport. Cargolux said nobody was hurt, and it has ordered extra inspections on all of its 747-8F freighters before each one flies again.

The aircraft was not moving. The Luxembourg rescue service CGDIS told L’essentiel that firefighters were called to the airport at about 11:15 local time and that the jet was stationary, not taking off or landing.

What Cargolux has said

In its statement, carried by Luxembourg media, Cargolux confirmed that LX-VCF was involved and that no crew members, employees or other people were injured. It said recovery work on the aircraft was under way in coordination with the responsible authorities, and that the exact circumstances are being investigated.

Tageblatt reported that the airline confirmed the event in a Facebook post. The additional checks cover the 747-8F fleet worldwide and must be done before each aircraft’s next departure. Cargolux called them a precaution, according to Airways Magazine.

Much is still unknown at the time of writing, on October 24. Cargolux has not given a cause, said what the inspections involve, named the authority leading the investigation, or said whether the checks have delayed any flights.

Its statement also did not say whether the jet was being loaded, serviced or simply parked when the gear gave way, or when LX-VCF could return to service.

Why a collapse on a parked jet means checks across the fleet

The 747-8 Freighter stands on 18 wheels: a two-wheel nose gear and four four-wheel main gear legs, two under the wings and two under the fuselage. When one wing leg folds, the jet settles toward that side, which is how aero.de described LX-VCF sinking on one side.

A gear leg failing on a stationary aircraft takes landing loads, runway speed and crew handling out of the picture. That narrows the question to the gear itself: its parts, its locking and its maintenance, any of which could in principle be shared by sister aircraft.

Checking every 747-8F before it flies again is the cautious answer while the cause is open. According to Airways, the announcement did not cover the airline’s older 747-400 freighters.

The stakes for the airline are large. Cargolux says it flies 30 747-400 and 747-8 freighters from its Luxembourg-Findel hub, and aero.de counts 14 of them as 747-8Fs, which makes Cargolux one of the biggest operators of the type.

LX-VCF itself is a 2012-built aircraft, according to aero.de. In August 2020 Cargolux welcomed it back from a maintenance check in Taipei wearing a special livery with a surgical face mask on its nose, painted to back the Luxembourg government’s mask campaign.

Cargolux’s earlier landing gear events at Luxembourg

The airline’s gear history at its home airport is recent. On May 14, 2023, the right body landing gear of 747-400F LX-OCV separated on landing at Luxembourg, an event Luxembourg’s accident investigation body, the AET, is still investigating.

The AET published a preliminary report on August 6, 2024, and its May 15, 2026 update said there were no conclusive findings and no safety recommendation yet.

Six days after the LX-OCV event, on May 20, 2023, 747-8F LX-VCB declared an emergency on approach to Luxembourg after an indication that its landing gear might not be fully down. Cargolux said the crew flew low past the airport so observers could confirm the gear position, then landed safely with no injuries.

Nothing published links either 2023 event to Friday’s collapse, and the three involved different aircraft. The 747-8F fleet has also been under separate regulatory attention this year, when the FAA ordered inspections for fuselage stringer cracks on some freighters, a structural issue unrelated to the landing gear.

The AET’s public occurrence list, last updated in June, does not yet include the LX-VCF event. Under EU rules it decides whether an occurrence in Luxembourg warrants a formal safety investigation, and any finding on why a parked 747-8F’s gear folded would come from that process or from Cargolux’s own inquiry.