German airline Lufthansa said several employees were injured on Thursday after the nose gear of a Boeing jet collapsed while the aircraft was parked at a gate at Frankfurt airport.
Only crew members and ground staff were on board the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner when the front tip of the plane crashed to the ground ahead of passenger boarding for a scheduled flight to Los Angeles. The flight was later canceled.
“Several employees were injured and are currently receiving medical attention,” Lufthansa said in a statement, adding that it and relevant authorities were investigating.
The aircraft is just over a year old and was delivered to Lufthansa in January, one of the newest additions to the airline’s wide-body fleet, according to Flightradar24. Since entering service in February, the plane has operated 137 flights, the flight-tracking website said.
Boeing said it is “aware of the incident” and "supporting our customer.”
Video footage from the scene appeared to show the front wheels of the aircraft sliding forward and the plane's nose falling several meters (yards) as a ground crew member standing nearby quickly backed away. The doors to the nose gear bay broke off upon impact.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former U.S. federal aviation crash investigator, said it is “very unusual” for a nose landing gear to collapse while an aircraft is at a standstill. He cautioned it is too early to speculate on the cause of the incident, but he said potential factors could include prior damage to the landing gear, a mechanical failure or issues related to maintenance work.
Investigators, he said, will be looking closely at the plane’s maintenance history and system records, and may also review flight data to understand how the aircraft’s landing gear had been operating in previous landings.
“They’re going to look at every square inch of that nose landing gear strut and the mechanisms that operate it,” Guzzetti said.
A 2021 incident at London’s Heathrow Airport also involved the nose landing gear of a Boeing 787. According to a report by the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch, a 787-8 was undergoing maintenance at a gate when its nose landing gear retracted during testing, causing the aircraft’s nose to drop onto the pavement. Investigators found that a locking pin intended to prevent retraction had been inserted into the wrong position, allowing the gear to fold despite safeguards designed to keep it extended.
The 787 Dreamliner, a wide-body twin-aisle aircraft used primarily on long-haul international routes, first entered service in 2011. The version involved in Thursday’s incident can carry up to 296 passengers, depending on configuration.
In recent years, the 787 program had been plagued by production flaws and quality-control issues, with shipments of the large plane temporarily halted on multiple occasions.
Issues with the 787 started in 2020 when small gaps were found between panels of the fuselage that are made of carbon composite material. That prompted inspections that turned up problems with a pressurization bulkhead at the front of the plane.
In May 2021, Boeing halted 787 deliveries while U.S. federal regulators looked over documentation of work that was done on new planes.
In June 2023, Boeing said 787 deliveries were delayed again while it inspected fittings on part of the aircraft’s tail — the horizontal stabilizer — after identifying a “nonconforming condition.” The company said at the time that the issue would affect near-term deliveries but was not considered a safety risk for aircraft already in service.
Yamat, AP's airlines and travel writer, reported from Las Vegas.
A Lufthansa 'Dreamliner' aircraft lies on its nose in front of a terminal at the Frankfurt Airport in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, June 4, 2026, after the nose landing gear collapsed. (Mike Seeboth/dpa via AP)
A Lufthansa "Dreamliner " aircraft lies on its nose in front of a terminal at Frankfurt Airport after the nose landing gear collapsed on Thursday, June 4, 2026 in Frankfurt, Germany, (Mike Seeboth/dpa via AP)
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday rejected a proposal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a face-to-face negotiation on the conflict, saying he sees “no point” in it.
Thursday's letter, the first public message Zelenskyy has written directly to Putin since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, was a sweeping critique of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power.
Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin described Zelenskyy’s open letter proposing the meeting as “boorish,” particularly after a May 22 drone attack on a college dormitory in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region that Moscow said killed 21 and wounded scores of others.
“Is it a way to create conditions for personal meetings and talks, or create an environment which makes any personal meetings impossible?” Putin said. “I think it’s the second.”
He said that he sees “no point” in the meeting.
Zelenskyy acknowledged shifting U.S. priorities, saying it would be wrong to simply wait for the Trump administration to return its attention to ending the fighting in Ukraine while it remains heavily focused on the Iran war.
In Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump had said it “would be great” if Putin and Zelenskyy meet.
Putin has previously offered for Zelenskyy to come to Moscow for talks, an offer that the Ukrainian leader pointedly rejected. Putin said last month he doesn’t exclude a meeting in a third country, but only when there is a deal to sign.
On Thursday, Putin again rejected Zelenskyy’s push for an immediate ceasefire, arguing that Moscow wants a comprehensive settlement, not a temporary truce.
Putin said Russia is open for a compromise on Ukraine in line with understandings reached at his last year’s summit with Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, adding that Ukraine needs to accept them to make a deal to end the conflict, now in its fifth year.
“Naturally, the Ukrainian side would like us to suspend the advances made by Russian troops,” he said. “But it would be better to end the war by agreeing to the compromises that were discussed in Anchorage.”
In a speech earlier Friday at the forum, Putin said developing countries have gained an increasingly important role in the global economy, while the share of output by Western countries has shrunk.
He accused the West of undermining the global economy and finances with unilateral sanctions. By freezing Russian assets abroad through sanctions, Western nations eroded trust in their own currencies, he said.
“The sanctions and blocking of Russia’s sovereign reserves have irreversibly impacted the standing of international currencies, the dollar and the euro,” he said. “Just like Russia, any other country could lose access to their legitimate assets in dollars or euros, as well as Western financial and payment systems.”
He alleged that high state debt had helped undermine global trust in Western institutions.
“The roots of the current global turbulence lie in the transition from a vertical, hierarchical model, which served the interests of a small number of states, to a more complex, distributed and multipolar one,” Putin said. “Russia views global changes not only as a threat but also as immense opportunities. And to capitalize on them, we aim to act swiftly and pragmatically.”
The Russian leader said the world needed a “modern, flexible and responsible financial architecture — free from risks, bans and barriers.”
Putin played down Russia’s economic slowdown and sought to emphasize its macroeconomic stability. He noted that Russia’s state debt is a fraction of that in Western countries and its budget deficit is considerably smaller, compared with the West.
The forum comes at a time when Russia’s economic outlook has clouded amid the conflict in Ukraine. The government raised taxes and increased domestic borrowing to keep its budget deficit under control.
On Thursday, Putin told heads of international media at a question-and-answer session that it was an exaggeration to say Russia's economy was struggling. He noted that his government had taken deliberate steps to cool the economy to keep inflation under control.
Putin has used the St. Petersburg forum, likened to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to showcase his country’s economic advances and encourage foreign investment. While Western officials and business leaders have stayed away after Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, Russia has sought guests from elsewhere to underline its declared goal of promoting a “multipolar world.”
Saudi Arabia sent a large delegation this year, and the presidents of Uzbekistan and Tanzania and vice president of China also gave speeches Friday. A U.S. official, Rodney Mims Cook Jr., head of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, is attending for the first time in years.
Putin on Thursday acknowledged damaging Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia and pledged to bolster its defenses.
“To our regret, some of them break through,” Putin told the media session in talking about the drone strikes. “Russia has an air defense system, we need to improve it, strengthen it, and we will do that.”
Hours before the forum opened on Wednesday, a Ukrainian drone attack set ablaze an oil terminal in the city and also hit a nearby naval base.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a plenary session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
In this photo released by the Roscongress Foundation, Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a plenary session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday, June 5, 2026. (Kirill Kazachkov/Roscongress Foundation via AP)
Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev addresses a plenary session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
People visit an exhibition at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St.Petersburg, Russia, on Thursday, June 4, 2026. (Anatoly Maltsev/Pool Photo via AP)
People visit an exhibition at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St.Petersburg, Russia, on Thursday, June 4, 2026. (Anatoly Maltsev/Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he arrives to attend a plenary session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
In this photo released by the Roscongress Foundation, Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, and Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan arrive to attend a plenary session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday, June 5, 2026. (Vyacheslav Viktorov/Roscongress Foundation via AP)
