Newcastle Aero Club's Chief Flying Instructor says this morning's light plane crash landing at the Rutherford airstrip wasn't as serious as it appeared from the major emergency response it attracted.
Around 9:30, a 65-year-old male pilot, the sole occupant of the aircraft, was about to return to the aerodrome when he lowered the landing gear and noticed that he had an unsafe undercarriage warning.
There are three main wheels on this type of twin-engine aircraft, a nose wheel and two main wheels forming a triangle. In today's incident, the left main wheel was down but not properly locked in.
It was then the pilot contacted Flying Instructor Phil Unicomb on the ground.
"I ran him through some emergency checks, just to make sure he'd tried everything that he could have," Mr Unicomb said, "then I got him to fly-by low overhead so I could visually check it and it didn't appear to be properly locked in. So then I notified emergency services as we have to do...
"We got him back down again, no harm done."
The Beechcraft Duke aeroplane landed on its belly shortly after 10, running off into grass alongside the airstrip. Firefighters expelled foam around the plane to prevent it catching on fire.
NSW Ambulance Paramedics assessed the pilot at the scene - he'd sustained only minor bruising.
"People see ambulances, police cars and firefighters rushing towards an aerodrome and everybody panics," Phil Unicomb said, "but it wasn't nearly as serious as it appeared."
However, the Flying Instructor says the malfunction was a very rare occurrence and all precautions were taken to ensure a safe landing.
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| Image: Grant McIntyre NBN. |
