A video shows a pilot making an emergency airplane landing last Monday in Australia without landing gear after the aircraft experienced a mid-flight mechanical failure.
According to Fox Business, the New South Wales Police Force has praised the pilot, 53-year-old Peter Schott, for making the heroic landing on Monday at Newcastle Airport. The outlet reported that the small airplane, identified as a Beechcraft Super King Air, left the airport early in the morning before it was forced to turn back due to a mechanical issue with the aircraft’s landing gear.
“He made a textbook wheels-up landing, which I was very happy to see … it was a great result,” NSW Police Superintendent Wayne Humphrey said. “Really well done by the pilot.”
According to FlightRadar 24 data obtained from Fox News, the aircraft was documented circling the airport for multiple hours before the pilot landed the plane safely without any landing gear.
A video of the landing shows the aircraft grinding across the Newcastle Airport runway. The video also captures the cheers of a crowd that gathered to watch the emergency landing on the runway.
The Daily Mail reported that Schott and two passengers, identified as 60-year-old Michael Reynolds and his 65-year-old wife, had been on the aircraft during Monday’s mechanical failure incident. Despite the rough landing, no injuries were reported from the incident.
READ MORE: Video: Plane bounces off runway in failed landing
Schott told 9News that he circled around the Australian airport for hours in order to burn through the plane’s fuel reserves. “It was all about minimizing risk, so I had a figure in the back of my mind of how much fuel I wanted on-board for the least risk and I just circled until I got that figure,” Schott said.
“I would have done this exercise for students, I don’t know 200, 300 times, so it was quite textbook,” the pilot, who works as an instructor for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, added.
Reynolds told 9News that Schott “stayed 100 percent calm all the time” and did “a wonderful job” throughout the mechanical failure incident.
