Pilot does a belly good job
An Australian pilot with 60 years experience says plane’s terrifying forced belly landing at Newcastle Airport on Monday is more common than you might think.
A 13-seater commercial charter plane skidded to a stop on the wet runway at Newcastle Airport at 12.20pm.
A crowd had gathered to see the tense descent, and more than 22,000 people were tracking it on FlightRadar24 after news broke of a landing gear malfunction 90 minutes earlier. Shortly after takeoff about 8.30am, the 50-yearold Queensland pilot reported the landing gear had malfunctioned.
On board were a married couple in their 60s. They circled Newcastle Airport burning fuel for hours, took a jaunt to sea and glided onto the tarmac in a textbook manoeuvre with no injuries.
Captain Byron Bailey who flew Air Force fighter jets, for Emirates and now jets around billionaires, said the pilot did well, but airmen and women were trained for it.
Now 80 and still flying, Mr Bailey said the pilot came in a little fast so he could turn off the props and minimise damage to the plane.
“He did good, and if the runway’s wet that’s good; which it was,” Mr Bailey said.
“The pilot did a good job. You can’t get certified if you can’t do it (land wheels-up).”
Mr Bailey could not estimate how many light aeroplanes landed wheels up each year in Australia.
“It’s not really an emergency. It is in a way. It doesn’t always make the news. It’s not uncommon.”
He estimated one-in-a-thousand belly landings ended in significant damage or injury. A plane landed wheels-up at Bankstown and the Gold Coast recently, and it happened at rural air strips like Mount Isa, Mr Bailey said.
It was a Beechcraft B200 Super King Air plane involved.
“Our King Air aviation fleet is getting old. Things start to happen,” Mr Bailey said.
He explained the Beechcraft ran on kerosene.
The plane circled burning fuel to be as light as possible for landing, Mr Bailey said.
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