A plane carrying three people without wheels has landed at an Australian airport

A small plane carrying three people was able to reach the runway safely without landing gear on Monday, after flying over an Australian airport for about three hours to burn fuel.

he Pilot Peter Schottand her The passengers are a 60-year-old man and a 65-year-old womanThey got off without help Beechcraft Super King Air Police Chief Wayne Humphrey said the plane was equipped with a twin-turboprop engine after landing at Newcastle Airport, north of Sydney. saying.

Schutte “made a textbook landing, which I was very happy to see,” Humphrey told reporters at the airport.

Humphrey said all three were examined by paramedics at the airport and none of them needed to be taken to hospital.

Schott (53 years old) said that he had been flying since he was fifteen years old, and he had no doubt that he would land safely despite the failure of the landing gear.

“We were attacked by everything: bad weather, rain, there were about 20 pelicans downwind… you know, bird dangers.”“, a smiling Shute told Nine News TV at the airport.

“I had no doubt about the outcome of the trip,” he said.

Passenger Michael Reynolds praised the pilot’s performance.

“Pete, the pilot, did an amazing job. He was amazing, he was 100% calm the whole time,” Reynolds told Nine.

Humphrey said the plane had just taken off from Newcastle on a 180km flight north to Port Macquarie when the pilot sounded the alarm about “landing gear problems”.

The video shows that the plane landed on the runway about three hours later, at 12:20 p.m., without any incident.

Emergency services included firefighters and ambulances.

The plane is owned by Port Macquarie-based Eastern Air Services, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Aviation safety expert Ron Bartsch said the pilot would have decided to return to Newcastle because the airport had better emergency response resources than those available at Port Macquarie.

“The pilot made a very perfect landing and got everyone to land safely, which is the most important result,” Bartsch said. “It could have been much worse.”.

“They have to cut off fuel and electrical systems to reduce the possibility of a fire upon landing. But the pilot clearly did it in textbook style,” Bartsch said.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will investigate the incident.

Humphrey said that the runway will remain closed for 24 hours while its condition is assessed, but the damage to the runway appears to be “superficial.”

(With information from AP)