MD80 flight crew is informed by inbound Captain that the aircraft 'pulls to the right' for all ground operations. The logbook reflected previous entries on this problem. After directional control difficulties during takeoff; nose gear did not indicate safe when extended for landing at destination. QRH was complied with and nose gear held during an uneventful landing.
Synopsis
MD80 flight crew is informed by inbound Captain that the aircraft 'pulls to the right' for all ground operations. The logbook reflected previous entries on this problem. After directional control difficulties during takeoff; nose gear did not indicate safe when extended for landing at destination. QRH was complied with and nose gear held during an uneventful landing.
Narrative
At departure gate; inbound Captain advised First Officer that nose steering was pulling to right for all ground operations. Logbook had previous maintenance entries addressing this problem. On takeoff roll approaching V1; the aircraft veered sharply to the right. I immediately initiated liftoff to prevent further loss of directional control. Once airborne; flight attendants called to inquire what happened as they thought the aircraft was going to lose control. After clean up and above 10;000 FT; I contacted Dispatch and Maintenance to discuss the problem. Decision was made to continue to destination where maintenance would be standing by. On final approach when gear was selected to down position; the nose gear green light did not illuminate. We leveled off at 2500 FT; declared an emergency and flew by Tower for initial visual inspection. Climbed to 3000 FT and was vectored in local area to run checklist. Again Dispatch and Maintenance were contacted to review/discuss QRH to 'leave no stone unturned' before we landed. After completing checklist; we were vectored for landing and landed uneventfully. Stopped on Runway and were towed to gate.
Second reporter narrative
On final positioning the gear handle down resulted in two green lights for the mains but no green lights for the nose gear. We declared an emergency with ATC and requested a holding area to run our QRH procedures. Once established in the holding area; we ran our QRH procedures; notified Dispatch; and verified with Maintenance that we had completed our QRH procedures properly. The Captain briefed the Flight Attendants on the procedures and communicated with the passengers the nature of our emergency. Once the cabin was secure and verifying that fire and rescue was in place; we requested an approach back to the airport. After a successful all gear down landing; we came to a complete stop on the runway where ground personnel were waiting. They safety pinned the gear and towed us to our arrival gate. We wrote up our gear indication problem in the logbook and discussed our write up with contract maintenance and were then released into our overnight.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.