Singapore Airlines jet collapses during checks

A Singapore Airlines jet collapsed on Sunday morning with no passengers or crew on board as an engineer conducted routine landing checks before a scheduled flight from Singapore to Hong Kong, the airline said. The carrier said in a statement that the nose gear of an Airbus A330-300 "retracted while the aircraft was undergoing a landing gear system check." It said the damage to the plane would be assessed after it is removed from the gate. The plane had been due to serve flight SQ890, scheduled to depart for Hong Kong from Singapore's Changi Airport at 7:35am. The collapsed plane had been in service for more than six years, according to records. Its maiden flight was in April 2009. On May 23, another Singapore Airlines Airbus A330-300 temporarily lost power in both engines on a flight from Singapore to Shanghai carrying 194 people, causing it to descend 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) before normal operation was restored.

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