A Brussels Airlines Airbus A320, in the livery of the Belgium “Red Devils” Soccer National Team, performing flight from Brussels to Madrid landed on Madrid’s runway 32R but touched down hard. The aircraft rolled out without further incident and taxied to the apron, where passengers disembarked normally.

While the aircraft was being prepared for the return flight SN-3722, passenger luggage was already loaded, substantial damage to the landing gear was discovered, the return flight needed to be cancelled.

The aircraft remained on the ground in Madrid for about 43 hours, then performed a ferry flight with landing gear down, maximum flight level 260 and maximum 270 knots over ground, to Brussels and is still on the ground in Brussels for now about 206 hours (more than 8 days).

The occurrence came to light because the national soccer team “Red Devils” of Belgium, always using “their” aircraft for matches abroad, could not fly on their livery aircraft to Sarajevo for their world cup qualifier match against Bosnia and Herzegovina on Oct 7th 2017.