Landing gear fracture forced small plane’s ‘wheels up’ emergency landing, investigation finds

A small plane was forced to perform a "wheels up" emergency landing in Newcastle due to a pre-existing fracture on its landing gear that snapped after takeoff and caused its front wheel to jam, an investigation has found.

The Beechcraft B200 Super King Air turboprop plane, operated by Eastern Air Services, took off from Newcastle airport on 13 May this year headed for Port Macquarie carrying two passengers as a charter service.

However, almost immediately after taking off, pilot Peter Schott discovered the landing gear failure and alerted air traffic control and various authorities about the situation.

The plane did not travel towards Port Macquarie, instead circling in the vicinity of Newcastle for four hours as it burned fuel to reduce the fire risk of an inevitable "wheels up" landing on its belly.

News crews broadcasted the events live . As the plane landed without significant damage, cheers erupted at an operations room set up at a nearby defence base at Williamtown as well as from locals who had gathered at Newcastle airport.

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Schott and his two passengers – a 60-year-old man and a 65-year-old woman – walked away uninjured.

On Wednesday, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau released the findings of its investigation into the incident, which included examining components from the plane at its technical facility in Canberra.

"As the pilot retracted the landing gear during the initial climb, mechanical crunching noises were heard, and the pilot saw that the red indicator lights on the landing gear control handle remained illuminated. An air traffic controller subsequently visually confirmed that the nose landing gear was only partially retracted," the report said.

ATSB director transport safety Stuart Macleod said that Schott followed emergency extension procedures to try to rectify the issue, but these proved unsuccessful.

He then performed a holding pattern for about four hours to burn fuel.

"Detailed examination of the steering link at the ATSB's technical facilities in Canberra, including with the use of a scanning electron microscope, identified a pre-existing fatigue crack on the fracture surface, which had initiated from a surface flaw," Macleod said.

"When the steering link fractured, either during take-off or the gear retraction sequence, the nose wheel was able to rotate beyond its normal operational limits, and a significant left rotation led the nose gear shimmy damper to become jammed against a door hinge within the nose wheel well," he said.

"The pilot managed fuel considerations to reduce the risk of fire, engaged company personnel and air traffic control for assistance, liaised with emergency services and prepared the passengers for the wheels-up landing, minimising the risk of injury and ensuring the evacuation was conducted safely," Macleod said.