Nose gear failure causes 'belly flop' emergency landing at Newark Airport

YouTube

A plane was forced to make an emergency landing without its front landing gear at Newark Airport in New York last night.

The Shuttle America flight 5124, operated on behalf of United from Atlanta, was carrying 71 passengers, none of whom were hurt, and who all had to be evacuated from the plane's emergency chutes, according to the Daily Mail.

The airport was temporarily closed down after the pilot informed authorities that the plane's "unsafe gear indicator" light had come on.

The runway was coated with flame-retardant foam in preparation for the landing, reported myfoxny.com.

A Shuttle America spokesman told the site: "On approach, the flight crew was not able to confirm that the nose gear had deployed correctly.

"After receiving confirmation from Newark Air Traffic Control that the nose gear was not down, the crew declared an emergency, prepared the cabin and safely landed. All customers and crew were safely bussed to the terminal."

One man waiting at the airport for the safe return of his wife received a text message from her which read: "The plane I am on from ATL will be doing an emergency landing... The landing gear will not open. I love you."

One passenger Kija Barnes, 25, told the New York Times that she was woken up from a nap by flight attendants warning her to get into a crash position.

Another passenger, Angela Nickerson, 40, a project manager at Boeing in Seattle, said her background left her only too aware of the plane's troubles once the aircraft began gaining altitude again after its descent.

She added that the pilot deserved "tremendous credit" saying: "Honestly, I've been in rougher landings when we had landing gear."

Sign up to our weekly newsletterFollow us on TwitterBecome a fan on Facebook