Gear Up Landing at Westchester 080307

[helicopper 1,050]

Some photos:

[GwchFireRescue 0]

very nice pictures

[WHFD318 17]

Great Pictures!! Where were they taken from??

[Guest alsfirefighter]

awesome shots Chris. Nice plane too, I was recently watching an episode on one of either the discovery channels or military channel and they were highlighting a prop plane that is no longer in production that had a reverse prop on it. But I believe that model was a single prop type and all the pilots that still fly it were raving about it.

[irishfire2491 24]

reason why i dont fly!!!!

[Guest alsfirefighter]

You don't fly???? Safer then being in a vehicle.

[Guest WCDES636]

The plane looks like a PIAGGIO P180 Avanti. Made in Italy.

[Guest]

I guess the P-180 doesn't have a back up system or a manual gear release. Still, very nice landing by the pilots

[hudson144 150]

reminds me of the days of foaming the runway 800'x24' of protein foam (8" thick) from an F6 USAF 5000gals water with 550 gals of protein foam. usaf fd did away with foaming the runways because they felt that the only thing that it did was gave the pilots afalse sense of security and didn't really prevent a fire when a bird came in on a "belly landing". This was one of my first calls as an air force firefighter. a A- 37 came in with the nose gear stuck in the up position. the pilot and co pilot did a great job landing the aircraft in the foam blanket that we put down. Just before the aircraft stopped is when the belly of the a/c actual touched the runway. within seconds the 2 airforce pilots were out of the bird and running their asses toward the infield grass of the runway. we spent hours washing down the runway which in turn shut down the runway which kept the fleet of alert B-52s/KC-135s unavailable to deploy if needed. that was 27 years ago and 27 pounds ago! nice pics chris.

Edited August 4, 2007 by hudson144

[Guest skubasam]

The plane looks like a PIAGGIO P180 Avanti. Made in Italy.

Yup, yup....beautiful aircraft. Here's a link for more info...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P180_Avanti

[RWC130 594]

Everyone OK?

[helicopper 1,050]

They did have a manual landing gear release but couldn't verify that all three wheels were down so their procedure is to do a gear-up landing (I asked the same question). Much safer than having one or two wheels down and causes less damage (ultimately).

Yes, both pilots were A-OK! Airplane will be out of service for the next several weeks but suffered no real structural damage - just a real bad road rash!

[Capejake72 8]

that looks almost like Otis AFB (MA ARNG) old tanker

[Oswegowind 17]

Were these photos taken from above ground in the helo or on top of the terminal? Great photos none the less...glad we had someone there to capture it cause it don't happen everyday. Too bad there is no streaming video....duh!

[Guest]

WCDES636 Posted Yesterday, 02:07 PM

The plane looks like a PIAGGIO P180 Avanti. Made in Italy.

You are correct. It is a 2002 P180 registered to Avantair, they are a company that sells share based ownership in these planes. Remember, these planes have a 40,000 foot ceiling...which means pressurized cabin. make sure cabin is de-pressurized before attempting to open the door from the exterior.

Nice pictures Chris....

[ny10570 745]

that looks almost like Otis AFB (MA ARNG) old tanker

Yep, that tanker was from Otis. At least the background looks like Otis and that tanker matches the Otis tanker.

[TCD0415 26]

They did have a manual landing gear release but couldn't verify that all three wheels were down so their procedure is to do a gear-up landing (I asked the same question). Much safer than having one or two wheels down and causes less damage (ultimately).

Yes, both pilots were A-OK! Airplane will be out of service for the next several weeks but suffered no real structural damage - just a real bad road rash!

Might want to have the mechanics take a look at the landing gear while they are at it....... heh heh

[helicopper 1,050]

Were these photos taken from above ground in the helo or on top of the terminal? Great photos none the less...glad we had someone there to capture it cause it don't happen everyday. Too bad there is no streaming video....duh!

Both the old control tower and the helicopter. I'm working on the video for next time!!!

[Oswegowind 17]

Just remember, there are two switches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BTW I am still pissed about that!

I'll text you next time to remind you!