What happened
On March 5, 2002, an Aerospatiale/ATR 72-212 was performing a scheduled passenger flight from Dresden to Stuttgart. The aircraft was carrying 27 passengers and 4 crew members. During the takeoff roll on runway 22, the crew experienced two to three heavy jolts against the nose landing gear at approximately V1 speed. Following the takeoff, the pilot informed the tower that the aircraft had likely collided with an object on the runway.
Subsequent inspections of the runway perimeter revealed that three consecutive lights in the left edge lighting system had been destroyed. Debris from the lights, including glass fragments, was found scattered across the runway. The aircraft subsequently landed in Stuttgart without further incident, though a technical inspection later revealed significant damage to the nose landing gear, including a depressurized tire, deep cuts in the tire sidewalls, and damage to the nose gear strut and gear bay.