A student pilot made the best of a bad situation when she had to land the plane with no landing gear.
Maggie Taraska took off one her first solo flight from Beverly Regional Airport to fly to Portland, Maine. Unfortunately, the plane lost its right main wheel just after taking off.
The quick clip below is a brief excerpt of Taraska being talked through how to land with no landing gear so she can have a successful landing. The audio is original but the video is of another plane since there’s no footage of her landing.
“As soon as I took off, basically, I heard something,” Taraska said. “I just felt something was wrong instinctively.”
It’s those same instincts and the help of her instructor coaching her through the ordeal that allowed her to safely land in a very dangerous situation.
“I panicked a little bit, but I followed my training,” she continued.
“I was scared and stressed out. Obviously, if you listen to my conversation with the tower, you can hear that pretty clearly.”
“It was very serious and could have been much worse,” Beverly Airport manager Gloria Bouillon said. “You know, she was pretty shaken up.”
The skill of this young pilot is highly impressive and she handled this situation as perfectly as anyone could.
“By the time I saw Maggie coming on her approach, it was a better approach I could have flown,” Walter Taraska said. “And I got more hours than she does.”
“There were personnel talking her through this, her instructor as we were working the ground crew, and the emergency response as far as staging and what runway we were going to have her land on,” added Bouillon.
Everyone watching her landing cheered as she touched down safely.
“What she pulled off was pretty incredible,” Bouillon said. “Typically landing without one wheel is certainly one you don’t expect to walk away from.”
We’re glad to see this young pilot is safe and hope her future flights are much less eventful.