OGDEN — A pilot was forced to land Tuesday without any landing gear.
Robbie Allen was flying a dual-engine Piper aircraft for the Salt Lake County Mosquito Abatement District. Allen had just finished and was about to land at the Ogden-Hinckley Airport when he "put the gear down, and realized it's not coming down."
Allen said the plane was supposed to have four ways to get the landing gear down, but "I couldn't get any of them to work."
At that point, Allen was running low on fuel.
"So I just kind of had to make the decision: 'I have to land this with no gear or I'm going to run out of gas,'" he said.
Allen said he made a low fly by to get lined up with the runway, then did a loop and approached the runway a second time, cutting off his engine and fuel, and gliding in about 10:30 p.m.
"On the second time, I put it right on the runway with no gear, and it just skidded on its belly right down the runway," he said. "(It was) pretty nerve-racking, but I'm glad it panned out the way it did and nothing bad happened.
"It actually ended up being a pretty smooth landing, better than when I have the wheels down," Allen said.
Allen also had a passenger on the plane, a University of Utah student who was flying in a small aircraft for the first time. Neither person was injured.
Allen said the plane suffered minimal damage.
Contributing: Peter Samore
Email: preavy@deseretnews.com
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