Pilot 'belly-lands' stricken plane at Jandakot

LOOK MUM, NO WHEELS: Trainee commercial pilot Chris Choo safely landed his plane without landing gear at Jandakot this morning. Picture: Stewart Allen

Joachim Azzopardi
September 05, 2007 11:30am

A TRAINEE pilot has walked away uninjured after successfully completing a "belly-landing'' at Jandakot Airport today when the plane's landing gear failed.

Chris Choo, 22, issued a distress signal to air traffic control about 9.30am when the landing gear of his single-propeller plane would not come down.

The small Mooney plane with just the trainee pilot on board had been circling Jandakot Airport for about two hours to burn off fuel after it was discovered one of the landing wheels would not fully release into position.

Royal Aero Club of WA chief executive officer Alan Hoffman spoke to Mr Choo by radio after he made the distress call. Mr Hoffman told Mr Choo he would send a chief engineer and a flying instructor in another small plane to fly alongside the aircraft for a closer inspection of the faulty landing gear.

"These planes have a wheel on the front and two on the side and one of the ones on the side only came half way down,’’ he said. "The engineer and instructor determined it wasn’t possible to get that gear down. "You can land in that situation but obviously it’s quite dangerous.’’

The airport activated its emergency response plan and suspended all other activity during the emergency. Mr Hoffman instructed Mr Choo to pull all the landing gear up and land on the plane’s belly which he deemed as the safest way. After two trial runs the pilot cut the engine just before landing and skidded for 15 seconds before he brought the plane to a halt about 11.15am.
Mr Hoffman said in this situation landing on a tarmac runway was safer than landing on grass. "The risks associated with friction causing flames or anything like that is extremely low.’’ Mr Choo was checked by medical staff and went through a counselling session to make sure he was not in shock.

"He was absolutely delighted he said the 15 seconds was a lifetime to him on the runway but he was calm.’’ "He had the skills to do it no doubt, he just needed to have the confidence.’’ The number of incidents involving Mooney aircraft were very low according to Mr Hoffman. "These are trialled and trained aircraft which we use because they have very few incidences.’’

He said Mr Choo would be back in the sky tomorrow.