A pilot proved to be an ace in the skies after performing a nailbiting touchdown when the Myanmar flight’s landing gear failed.

Myanmar pilot saves the day as all walk off stricken aircraft

YANGON: A Myanmar pilot saved the day after his aircraft’s landing gear failed, forcing the jet into an emergency landing with no front wheels, an official said.

The nailbiting touchdown – in which nobody was injured -- was the second instance of a malfunctioning flight in less than a week within the country.

The Myanmar Airlines flight UB-103 – an Embraer-190 model – was grounded at around 9am in Mandalay, a city popular among foreign tourists, with all 89 people on board, including seven crew members, safe.

An unverified video circulated on social media showed a graceful landing before the nose of the jet tipped over and ground to a halt.

Ye Htut Aung, deputy director-general of Myanmar’s Civil Aviation Department, said the pilot tried repeatedly to drop the landing gear at the front of the plane – first through its computer system, then manually.

“They tried by flying around twice and asked to check whether the nose wheel dropped or not,” Ye Htut Aung said, calling it a “technical fault”.

“So they had to land with the back wheels ... The pilot could land it skillfully,” he said. “There were no casualties.”

Myanmar National Airlines are now sending engineers to Mandalay to check on the aircraft, Ye Htut Aung said, adding that all jets get a daily flight check.

Passenger Soe Moe said: “Smoke came out a little when we landed ... All passengers are okay.”

Yesterday’s incident comes just days after a Biman Bangladesh Airlines plane crash landed and slid off a runway while landing in Yangon airport during a storm on Wednesday, leaving 11 passengers injured.

Myanmar’s monsoon season has caused problems for commercial and military flights in the past.

A military plane crashed into the Andaman sea in 2017 with 122 people on board – one of the deadliest aviation accidents in the country’s history – which authorities attributed to bad weather. — AFP

Nose down: (Clockwise) A passenger recording the scene on her phone as firefighters respond to the emergency, smoke entering the cabin as the plane landed and firefighters hosing it down as a precaution in Mandalay. — Reuters/AP