BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. — A successful landing at the North Central West Virginia Airport has ended nearly two hours of emergency response to an airplane’s landing gear complications that arose during training for the West Virginia Air National Guard.
Multiple first responders were on scene to the “Alert 2” call at 11:38 a.m.
Airport Director Rick Rock said the plane’s indicator light failed to come on for landing, leaving the pilots without confirmation that the landing gear was engaged. Rock said the plane had been circling for at least an hour in effort to burn off as much fuel as possible.
“You just want to lessen the probability of any fire,” Rock told the AJR News Network. “When the aircraft comes down, if the landing gear is not engaged there will be a lot of sparks. If there’s a lot of fuel, it becomes volatile and obviously you don’t want that.”
As a precaution, the plane burned up as much fuel as possible prior to landing to prevent any sparks or fires.
The state’s Air National Guard was stationed on the field today for training, which will now resume with the successful landing.