A Lear has just landed safely with a nose gear problem. It’s taxiing straight now, but I thought I saw a very little swerve as the nose came down. (That could have been from the pilot anticipating a cocked nose gear, and compensating for it.)
Lots of landing gear incidents lately. Or at least, there are more being covered by the news.
The cause was a blown tire on the right main gear of the 717 (OK, MD-95 if you insist), which has 2 wheels on each side. The crew was concerned that it could jam if retracted, preventing them from simply going to Milwaukee anyway and landing there.
But the remaining tire on the right was still good, limiting any yawing moment after touchdown. The sparks were from the rim, or maybe bead, of the wheel with the blown tire scraping the pavement.
Yet another incident that didn’t deserve much media attention; unfortunately they’re hardwired to give blanket coverage to anything that just might plausibly (to the technologically semiliterate) have the potential for massive flaming deaths.
Unfortunate, in that they’re perpetuating a myth. I posted a thread on the Nall Report a couple of weeks ago. Flying is safe, and of the crashes that do happen only one in five results in a fatality. And commercial aviation is safer still.
I’m reminded of when I was flying fixed-wing, and I’d do the GUMP check.
Gas on Both
Undercarriage down and welded
Mixture Rich
Prop fixed RPM
(The Robinson prelanding checklist was: ‘Right trim off’ 
)