Gear Problem Spurred Emergency Landing

A flight instructor and a student walked away from a forced belly landing at New Jersey's Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU) last week.

American Flyers' Flight instructor Nikola Vadjon, 34, skillfully brought the Cessna 172RG Cutlass in for a spark-filled landing Friday, on a runway lined with ready for action firefighters.

Michael Bliss, an American Flyers employee, said the Cessna took off around 9 a.m. and had enough fuel for six hours of flying. "They were never in danger of running out of fuel," Bliss said.

The landing gear that operates from a hydraulic system got stuck and would not come down, according to the Morristown Record. "The pivot assembly probably broke," Bliss said.

Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the agency is classifying the mishap as an "incident, not an accident."

American Flyers is responsible for hiring a mechanic to determine what went wrong with the landing gear and will have to report back to the FAA, according to Peters.

Vadjon was on a training flight with an unidentified female student pilot when the landing gear failed to retract and lock.

"It was a textbook landing," said Marie S. Renner, the manager of government affairs for the airport, which is in Hanover. "The people got out just fine."

The event was over near noon after the pilot landed safely the crippled aircraft.

On the ground, airport Fire Chief Doug Reighard had his crew and a contingent from the Morristown Fire Department standing by in flame-retardant suits.

As the plane touched down it sent a shower of sparks shooting across the asphalt. When the Cessna came to a stop firefighters doused the plane with flame-retardant foam as a precaution.

"Outside of being a little shook up, they were OK," Reighard said. "Actually, I think they were feeling pretty good about themselves."

Bliss said the pilot was very cool under pressure, using his cell phone to call the flight school. Bliss took the call and put Vadjon in touch with a mechanic who tried to walk him through fixing the problem in-flight before the emergency landing was attempted.

"He was totally professional," Bliss said. "Nobody could have done better."

FMI: http://mmuair.com, www.americanflyers.net/default.asp