Incident: Lufthansa B744 at Frankfurt on Sep 8th 2017, could not retract gear

A Lufthansa Boeing 747-400, registration D-ABVU performing flight LH-464 from Frankfurt/Main (Germany) to Orlando,FL (USA), was climbing out of Frankfurt's runway 18 when the crew stopped the climb at FL180, initially at about 350 knots over ground later about 400 knots over ground, and decided to return to Frankfurt. The aircraft entered a pattern to dump fuel and landed safely back on Frankfurt's runway 25C about 90 minutes after departure.

A passenger reported the entire flight was extremely noisy, however, sounds consistent with gear retraction were missing. The captain as well as flight attendants made announcement stating that they had not been able to retract the landing gear, were dumping fuel and returning to Frankfurt.

A replacement Boeing 747-400 registration D-ABTL departed about 3 hours after D-ABVU landed back and reached Orlando with a delay of 3:45 hours.

The flight was the last from Germany into Orlando before Hurricane Irma is estimated to hit Florida.

The occurrence aircraft is still on the ground in Frankfurt 25 hours after landing back.


Passenger photo during fuel dump
https://store4.up-00.com/2017-09/150505517252881.jpg