PAL Airlines PB901 Loses a Wheel Landing at Wabush as a CBC Producer on Board Films It

PAL Airlines flight PB901 lost a wheel as it landed at Wabush, Labrador, on the morning of Friday, October 30, 2026, and a passenger filmed it coming off. No injuries were reported, according to CBC News, whose producer was the passenger with the camera.

Joseph Galimberti, answering for the airline, said Flight 901 had a wheel bearing failure on landing, CBC reported. He said PAL has been in contact with Transport Canada and that the incident will keep being investigated to find the cause.

What the passenger saw before the landing

The producer, Lee Pitts, told CBC he suspected a problem before Wabush. On the takeoff from Goose Bay, a child called out that smoke was coming from the wheel, and the remark was brushed off as water spraying up from the wet runway.

Pitts kept watching, saw the wheel wobbling once the aircraft was airborne, and filmed it. “Whether it was steam or smoke, I don’t know, but it could have been smoke from a wheel bearing or brake pad, in hindsight,” he told CBC.

He filmed again on the way into Wabush, and his video shows the wheel flying off seconds after touchdown. By CBC’s account the landing was still smooth, and the aircraft was able to taxi so everyone could get off.

Pitts said maintenance staff then went to look at the wheel, but that passengers were not told what had happened to the landing gear. They were told the airline did not know whether it could continue flights.

PAL said in a written statement that it sent an additional aircraft so customers could continue their travel. The airport is a Transport Canada-operated field serving Labrador City, Wabush and Fermont, Quebec, and PAL keeps a base there.

What is not known yet

As of October 31, CBC’s report does not give the aircraft’s registration, the number of people on board, or which wheel came off. It also does not say whether anyone told the crew about the smoke remark or the wobble, or whether the Wabush runway was affected.

Schedule listings on Trip.com and FlightStats show PB901 as a Dash 8-400 service starting from St. John’s International. That is the listed type for the flight number, not confirmation of the airframe that flew on Friday, and PAL also operates smaller Dash 8 variants.

Who is leading the inquiry is less clear. A caption on CBC’s video says Transport Canada is investigating, but the report quotes no one from the agency and does not mention the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), the independent body that investigates aviation occurrences.

Why a wheel bearing matters

A wheel bearing has to carry heavy loads while letting the wheel spin freely. Airbus warns on its flight safety site that a failed bearing can damage the landing gear and brakes and can end in a part departing from the aircraft, and it stresses following the maintenance manuals exactly.

That guidance comes from Airbus rather than De Havilland, so it says nothing specific about the Dash 8. PAL has named the failed part but not explained why it failed, so whether the bearing started the problem or was a result of something else is still open.

The timing is open too. PAL’s description places the failure on landing, while Pitts says the wobble was visible after the Goose Bay takeoff, and the two accounts have not been reconciled publicly.

A lost wheel does not always end this quietly. In September, a Sita Air Dornier 228 lost its right main wheel at Juphal in Nepal, stopped on the runway and shut the airport to all flights.

PAL’s earlier landing gear investigations

The TSB has examined landing gear events on PAL aircraft at least twice since 2018. AeroCorner found nothing linking either one to Friday’s wheel, and the failures it described are different: a nose gear strut leak and a blown tire.

On December 28, 2024, a PAL-operated De Havilland DHC-8-402 flying for Air Canada from St. John’s to Halifax blew a left tire leaving St. John’s. The TSB said, as reported by CBC in January 2025, that neither the debris nor the blown tire was noticed in flight.

The TSB said the imbalance from that tire caused a vibration that unlocked the left main gear’s stabilizer brace, and the gear collapsed in Halifax. The left propeller hit the runway and the left engine caught fire, and all 73 passengers and four crew were evacuated with no injuries reported.

On November 15, 2018, a PAL DHC-8-315 with 47 passengers and four crew diverted to Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador, after its nose gear would not show down and locked, and the gear collapsed on touchdown. The TSB traced it to a strut leak that followed a previous operator’s repair, and no injuries were reported.