Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
HERO PILOT
Emergency landing hailed at Belfast International after plane’s nose gear fails
A PILOT was hailed yesterday for his “superb” skills after landing a plane safely with no nose gear.
Fifty-three Flybe passengers including an infant escaped virtually unscathed following the dramatic incident at Belfast International Airport. The fault was discovered soon after take-off and a massive emergency operation swung into place involving police, fire and ambulance crews.
Belfast International operations director Alan White said: “It was a very good landing. The flying skills, landing the aircraft, were superb.
“It became very obvious when it
was on approach that the nose wheel was not down so we knew that it was going to be a difficult landing.
“The flight deck crew were superb, they landed on the main undercarriage, they held the nose of the aircraft up to the last possible moment, bleeding off all the air speed and still keeping control and just dropping it at the very last minute.
“That meant it stopped relatively quickly, no issues, no fire with it, and they got it stopped safely on the runway.”
The Bombardier Q-400 had taken off from George Best Belfast City shortly after 11am. It was heading for Inverness but quickly diverted.
Passengers onboard flight BE331 endured a tense two-hour wait circling above the Irish Sea as the pilot burned off fuel while crews on the ground prepared for the emergency landing. Brian Strutton, general secretary of pilots’ union Balpa, told how landing without a nose gear is “a very difficult manoeuvre”.
He said: “The pilots in this case appear to have done a sterling job of bringing the aircraft back under those circumstances.”
Mr White said fire crews were on the scene immediately to assist in evacuating the aircraft.