Incident Overview
While on base leg, the captain lowered the landing gear and immediately heard a loud bang, accompanied by a shudder throughout the airplane. The flight crew declared an emergency and executed the prescribed abnormal procedures.
Emergency Landing and Evacuation
The crew conducted a forced landing at the destination airport. Upon touchdown, all main landing gear tires blew out. After stopping, the flight crew completed an emergency shutdown and evacuated the airplane without further incident.
Post-Event Examination
Examination of the airplane revealed a failure of the left hand main landing gear retract cylinder support frame due to fatigue. This failure caused the breaking of hydraulic lines attached to the retract cylinder, resulting in hydraulic fluid being dumped overboard and the deactivation of the antiskid system.