Lufthansa’s Damaged 787 Will Fly Again

Lufthansa’s damaged Boeing 787-9 will fly again by year’s end, with the June incident now behind it, as work continues to prepare the jet for a service return.

On 4 June 2026, a Lufthansa Boeing 787-9 registered as D-ABPQ made headlines after its nose landing gear collapsed while parked at a gate at Frankfurt Airport. As a result, the aircraft tipped forward; however, it did so with no passengers onboard.

While no passengers were aboard the jet, ground personnel and several Lufthansa staff were injured as a result of the incident. With the jet also sustaining significant damage to the forward fuselage zone and nose gear area that collapsed, the type was removed from service.

During the grounding period, investigators have been working to determine what happened and how to prevent it from occurring again, while maintenance work has repaired the affected areas.

This Boeing 787 was new to service at the time of the incident. It was operating some of its earliest long-haul flights before the collapse occurred, thus putting the spotlight on practices undertaken by ground staff during layovers.

Now, Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr has stated in an interview that the aircraft can be repaired, something not first thought possible in the early days after the incident. The expectation is that the 787-9 will return to scheduled service later this year.

What Investigators Found On The Lufthansa 787

Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation, the BFU, opened an investigation into the incident to determine what caused the nose gear to collapse while the aircraft was stationary.

Their late-published interim report pointed to a maintenance lapse rather than a mechanical issue present on the Boeing 787 jet. The pin identified by investigators, which needed to have been inserted into the nose landing gear before the maintenance test was conducted, was not in place when the gear retracted.

The same pin investigators pointed to was later found in a storage box located in the forward hold, and reports suggested it had been removed from the process but not properly reinstalled.

BFU’s findings confirmed suspicions, which pointed to a procedural failure rather than a technical defect on the aircraft. In the interim report, the findings stated the 787’s landing gear functioned as designed once the gear was commanded to retract, but the missing safety pin would’ve prevented the collapse.

The incident was traced to ground handling and maintenance, and the final report is still expected late; the early BFU findings paint a clear picture of the incident.

A Grounding Period Begins For The 787

Following the gear collapse, Lufthansa pulled the 787 out of service immediately, as the damage not only made it no longer airworthy but also required investigations to understand what transpired. If it had been a technical issue, regulators and Boeing would likely have been involved, and if it were a procedural issue, then a review of how the missteps were taken would also be required.

The jet was secured first, then inspected and moved under controlled conditions, all conducted before any repair work could begin. Spohr now states there were internal doubts on whether, in the early days following the nose gear collapse, the jet could be repaired.

The downtime of the 787 has also been influenced by the investigation, with the carrier cooperating with the BFU, putting forward evidence and waiting for the investigation to progress enough to be cleared to begin the maintenance work.

Initial expectations put no timeframe on how long the aircraft was to remain out of service; Its return is expected later this year, though no specific date has been given. With one less Dreamliner present in the network, the airline has replaced the damaged aircraft with its Airbus A340-300, an older and less efficient model.

The replacement efforts, while convenient that something is present, drive up costs, especially with the reserve aircraft already part of an ongoing renewal programme. As a result, jets like the A340-300 should be on the way out; instead, it’s covering a brand new 787 in a busy summer period due to missteps taken by staff.