THE world watched on live TV – and the replays! – as a Beech King Air made a gear-up landing at a small airport near Atlanta, Georgia last month. The pilot, whose name has not been released, had circled Charlie Brown Airport, Fulton Country, after radioing that the landing gear wouldn’t extend properly.

He made an attempt to ‘bounce’ the gear down but eventually had to retract all the undercarriage and make a belly landing – which he did perfectly, stopping the engines on touchdown and tracking down the centreline to a safe halt.