Emergency landing at Sikorsky Airport

STRATFORD — A private plane that took off from Sikorsky Airport on Saturday had to make an emergency landing on its belly, fire officials said.

“It lost a piece of landing gear on takeoff,” said Bridgeport Deputy Fire Chief Ronald Rolfe, the command unit at the scene. No one was hurt, he said.

The privately owned plane, which is housed in one of the airport’s hangars, took off from Sikorsky shortly before 4 p.m. with two people on board, Rolfe said. He said it was unclear whether the plane was headed somewhere else, or if the pilot and co-pilot were just taking a local flight on a nice day.

Stratford and Bridgeport first responders rushed to the airport after getting the call indicating a necessary emergency landing two minutes before 4 p.m. Fire units were accompanied on the runway by the airport’s crash truck, Rolfe said.

“The plane landed on its belly,” he said. “The pilot did a spectacular job on getting the plane down on the ground ... It went as textbook as it could have.”

Firefighters followed the plane in as it landed, dragging on the runway, causing what Rolfe said was minimal damage to the tarmac. In case of a fuel spill, the firefighters sprayed foam on the plane as soon as its two occupants self-evacuated from the plane. There were no injuries to either plane passenger, Rolfe said.