MELBOURNE, Australia, May 13, (AP): A light plane with three people aboard landed safely without landing gear Monday after circling an Australian airport for almost three hours to burn off fuel.
The pilot, Peter Schott, and his passengers, a 60-year-old man and a 65-year-old woman, walked unaided from the twin-turboprop Beechcraft Super King Air after landing at Newcastle Airport north of Sydney, police Superintendent Wayne Humphrey said.
Schott "made a textbook wheels-up landing, which I was very happy to see,” Humphrey told reporters at the airport.
Paramedics checked all three at the airport and none needed to be taken to a hospital, Humphrey said.
Schott, 53, said he has been flying since he was 15 and had no doubt he would land safely despite the seized landing gear.
"Everything was thrown at us: bad weather, the showers came through, there were about 20 pelicans downwind -- you know, bird hazards,” a smiling Schott told Nine News television at the airport.
"I never had any doubt in the outcome of the flight,” he said.
Passenger Michael Reynolds praised the pilot's performance.
"Pete the pilot, he did a wonderful job. He was awesome, 100% calm all the time," Reynolds told Nine.
The plane had just taken off from Newcastle for a 180-kilometer (112-mile) flight north to Port Macquarie when the pilot raised the alarm about "issues with the landing gear,” Humphrey said.