Plane with 157 passengers onboard lands without landing gear

A plane with malfunctioning nose landing gear touched down safely in a cloud of sparks and smoke at Orlando Sanford International Airport on Thursday, officials said.

Photo: Plane with 157 passengers onboard lands without landing gear

None of the 157 passengers on board the Allegiant Air flight from Portsmouth, N.H., was injured in the landing, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said.

Passengers and crew evacuated the aircraft by slides. A woman sprained her ankle but refused treatment, the AP reports.

“The aircraft experienced a hydraulic problem with the front nose gear. The nose gear was not coming down. They circled around for an hour and finally managed to land without it,'' Diane Crews, the airport's executive vice president, told CNN.

Witnesses say the plane landed on its back wheels, which had deployed normally, as the pilot lost speed while the plane traveled down the runway without nose gear. As the plane slowed, the pilot finally let the plane’s fuselage touch the concrete of the runway.

There was no fire, but considerable amount of smoke and sparks.

The plane came to a stop on 9600 foot long runway 9l/27R, the airport’s longest runway, and caused the airport to be closed, cbs4 reports.

Source: agencies

Prepared by Alexander Timoshik
Pravda.ru