That stood out when I did a Heli rating. The amount of obstacles in the grassed areas.

Was a case in the states a long while ago with a twin returning due failure. They opted for the grass over the concrete, couldn’t see any obstacles on the approach, so they stuck with it, the only thing was during the flare all these hidden obstacles started appearing.

Two threads on the mishap merged.

To be fair, the journos don't pick the photos/vids that get inserted into their stories and they don't write the captions for same (that's where the "miraculous landing" tag appeared). As to "hero pilot", that would probably be roundly endorsed by the pax, at the very least, I would think.

There's an exception for carrier landings.

Channel 7 called it a ‘belly-up’ landing 🙄

Having done lots of landings on grassed runways I can confirm that's a massive difference between a well-used grass runway and the "rough" grassed areas alongside it that hasn't seen traffic since the last time it got slashed. The grass is usually longer - sometimes much longer - and you can't see rabbit holes, swampy bits, drainage culverts, roos or even sheep sometimes. In peacetime I'd pick the hard stuff every time. The fact the surface was wet was an absolute bonus. I hope someone had a cup of tea ready for old mate who executed a textbook landing after putting another, what - 3.5 hours in the logs, burning off fuel?

Free turbine time in the logbook.

Honestly - just stick it on the ground for gawd's sake.

Nice job done by the pilot:D

A good example of why you should always carry an alternate for single runway aerodromes. Anyone know how long they took to remove the airframe?

I’m surprised the Airforce allowed their runway to be blocked. With all that fuel they could have gone anywhere!

Griffo, really straining the memory cells here but I'm sure that the Beech manual for both Baron and Bonanza recommended NOT landing gear up on the grass.

In the last five years, two airports that I regularly operate into have had the sole or primary runway closed due to aircraft being disabled on or close to the pavement.

From the Guardian:

”While the plane was in the air, Doug Drury, a professor of aviation at Central Queensland University, said the pilot would probably be in constant contact with maintenance teams troubleshooting the problem.

“My guess would be it’s not so much burning off fuel as it is trying to figure out what the problem is and if there is anything they can do to fix it prior to having put it on the ground,” Drury said as the plane was circling.

“If you’re landing without your landing gear you’re going to do quite a bit of damage to the engines as well as the belly of the aircraft. I would imagine they would also attempt to do a grass landing if possible, but with all the rain we’ve experienced lately that might make it difficult.”

However, Drury said if there were fire crews on the ground waiting “I’d imagine they could also put in on a runway”.

“They would be in contact with a maintenance team to go through as many trials as they can, like pull this circuit breaker, pull this switch, try this, try that,” he said.”

Perhaps someone could have a quiet word with the good professor…

’probably’…’my guess’…’would imagine’ …’might’….‘I’d imagine’

So basically he has no idea. The journalist doesn’t care, they got the ‘expert’ take, and enough comments to write some trashy article.

And the poor fella in the back was hurling his heart out "uncontrollably", according to the pilot, during the hours of orbits. The man certainly looked a bit ordinary when he got out.

Yep it’s well publicised that something will dig in and spin you around and even flip you over. Much smoother on the bitumen. Less chance of airframe stress on the bitumen as a result too as it’s not abruptly stopping and tearing off wings etc.

Thankyou 'Mr D-9',

Re the Barons etc., I have always wondered just what would happen when, that 'little' protruding step for cabin access actually makes contact.

Does it break off (by design) or does it 'dig in' and slew the aircraft around?

It does appear to be reasonably 'solid' and is certainly 'fixed'.......Could be it makes a fair bit of that 'noise'...?

Cheers

If you belly land on the grass the emergency services run the risk of running into a ditch whereas on the bitumen they have a clean run. This incident also puts paid to the common myth that disabled aircraft will simply be bulldozed off the runway to allow the airport to be used again.

Obviously it depends on the aircraft, but you might be quite surprised to find many aircraft designers actually account for belly-landings in their design. Since you don't really want a shower of sparks down the runway if you can avoid it, I suspect it either breaks off by design or somehow doesn't even touch.

eg. I'll admit to being extremely surprised to learn that loss of either main gear on a Piper Warrior (admittedly a trainer) results in minimal damage to the airframe itself due to the design of (a) the remaining struts which prevent the wing tips touching the runway and (b) a tail skid/tie-down to protect the tail section. Mr Piper certainly knew what he was doing!

Yep I can think of 4 in the last 3 years nationwide where runways were closed with disabled aircraft. So it does happen. Three of those were single runway aerodromes.

Time to spare, go by air...