Flight BQ502 from Nairobi - No landing gear!

We flew out of Nairobi on Kenya Airways (Boeing 767-700). It seemed a normal flight, we flew for 6 hours to Abidjan (Cote D'Ivoire) and then the flight routes back to Nairobi via Accra (Ghana). Apart from;

1. Loosing the luggage I had to put in the plane because they didn't like the the toothpaste and mosquito spray, and
2. the onboard enterntainment tv's were broken so I had to strain your kneck at 90 degrees to see the screen that was working right over my head or train I eyes to the bulkhead way ahead to see the faded big screen in the distance,
3. oh and the water had run out in the toilets (yuk) and
4. my seat was changed at the boarding gate in Nairobi when we boarded...

it was a good flight, and after all it is Africa. (Really the contrast is different, Kenya Airways don't have the budget that other larger airlines have so expect a more economy version of flight than with other airlines economy) Some say it's better to fly across Africa back into Europe and then back into the country of choice than to attempt to cross using the African carriers.

So we took off from Abidjan, just an hour to go, weather in Accra we were advised was 28 degrees with a slight 5mph wind and fine. As we approached the airport over Northern Accra (Est Legon where I live) I recognised the location and felt we were a bit high for landing. (Now I'm not the expert but after enough landings in Accra you can make a judgement, and I thought we were high)....well as we flew over the airport perimeter, we were definately high! Then the engines burned hard and we started to climb just 100m in height from the runway! Ok so we missed, big deal! Then the Captain came ever the intercom and said:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, as you may have noticed we did not land and have climbed to altitude. The reason for this is we have a disagreement with the landing gear! and need to fly by the control tower again to see if they can see it down!!!"

It would have been ok if the Captain had said we have a dissagrement with the Control Tower, or we are circling to rerun, but he told us the landing gear was not working!

You know the end of the this story because I am writing about it and there are no headlines on CNN about Flight BQ502 from Nairobi. On reflection though the Captain had to tell us the real situation because what if the gear didn't drop down properly, what if there wasn't a manual override for this kind of situation, what if? Everyone went quite, there was no panic in an audible way, I could see many praying...and ten long minutes later (after circling around Accra) all we heard was the Captain say "Cabin crew prepare for landing 2 minutes". There was no "it's ok now", or "don't worry everyone we have rectified the situation". I believe we landed and there was still a great deal of uncertainty that all the landing gear was firmly fixed down..

We landed normally, though throughout the whole approach there was an audible electonic pinging from the plane, betraying the longer we heard it that this was the sound of a malfunction alert

Many of us actually said some fairwells on the last minutes of BQ502, and I'm sure some put their hearts right with God....