A tiny jet burned fuel as it circled NSW airport for four hours after the landing gear disintegrated, and officials got ready for an emergency.
At Newcastle Airport in New South Wales, a small aircraft made a successful emergency landing without lowering its landing gear.
Applause broke out from the authorities who led the airplane down as it made a safe landing on its belly on Monday afternoon.
After the pilot discovered the technical problem almost immediately after taking off for a flight to Port Macquarie, the jet had been circling over Newcastle for nearly four hours.
With almost a dozen crews, including fire vehicles, police, the State situation Service, and ambulances at Newcastle airport, authorities had been preparing for a violent situation. At Williamtown, a local defense base, an operations room had been established.
At approximately 12:20 p.m., spectators gathered at the airport, the throng bursting in cheers as the plane landed on its belly without suffering any major damage. Both the pilot and the occupants of the plane left.
After takeoff, the 53-year-old pilot from Queensland realized there was a mechanical problem, according to Supt Wayne Humphrey, and he started circling while he attempted to fix it. Afterwards, the pilot concluded that the “landing gear would not come back down.”
Humphrey described the plane’s period of flight above Newcastle as “he stayed here and burned off fuel.” He was audible to me over the air. To me, he seemed really composed.
Humphrey said that the pilot executed “a textbook wheels-up landing – which I was very happy to see” after around ninety minutes of depleting fuel.
The two passengers, a sixty-year-old male and a sixty-five-year-old woman, were unharmed.
The two passengers “jumped in a car and drove home” to Tuggerawong, where they live, which is about an hour’s drive south of the airport, according to Humphrey, after landing.
When the plane landed, the operators room officials cheered. “Of course we cheered, no one was harmed, and we’re overjoyed. Everyone cheered,” Humphrey remarked.
According to Humphrey, the problem appeared to be a mechanical malfunction and that “nothing untoward” had happened.
The airport in Newcastle had to stay closed for around twenty-four hours while cleanup work was done.
As viewers from all over the world followed the flight’s progress on Monday morning, it was the most popular service on popular flight tracking websites.
From Eastern Air Services’ base in Port Macquarie, a Beechcraft B200 Super King Air turboprop jet, generally configured to seat roughly 13 people, operates private charter services.
It took off from Newcastle airport on Monday at around 8.30 a.m., but it didn’t seem to be heading towards Port Macquarie. Instead, it went into a holding pattern and circled around right away, until emergency services were called at roughly 9.30 a.m.
Newcastle Airport and the nearby Royal Australian Air Force facility at Williamtown share runway space.
“A civilian King Air aircraft reported in-flight technical issues to air traffic control at RAAF Base Williamtown,” a defense spokesperson said.
According to a defense official, “the aircraft are receiving support from defense and emergency services at RAAF Base Williamtown.”
Authorities reacted to reports of an aircraft with non-functioning landing gear, according to a NSW police spokesperson.
NSW police released a statement saying, “Emergency services were called to Newcastle airport about 9.30am today following reports of an aircraft with mechanical issues.”
“Port Stephens Hunter police district officers are present at the location. At this time, no additional information is available.
Doug Drury, an aviation lecturer at Central Queensland University, said the pilot would likely be in frequent communication with maintenance teams to troubleshoot the aircraft while it was in the air.
As the plane circled, Drury remarked, “My guess would be it’s not so much burning off fuel as it is trying to figure out what the problem is and if there is anything they can do to fix it prior to having put it on ground.”
The engines and the undercarriage of the aircraft will sustain significant damage if you land without your landing gear. They might also try to conduct a grass landing, if that is possible, although it might be challenging with the amount of rain we’ve had recently.
On the other hand, Drury stated that “I’d imagine they could also put in on a runway” if there were fire crews waiting on the ground.
“A maintenance team would be contacted to conduct as many trials as possible, such as pulling a circuit breaker, pulling a switch, and trying this, that, and so on,” he stated.
