COLUMBUS (Maria Durant/Derek Drake) -- A pilot survived landing his Mooney M20D plane without the landing gear. It happened at around 7:00 p.m. at Bolton Field in Southwest Columbus. The airport was shutdown while firefighters and other emergency personnel lined the runway as the pilot made a "belly" landing. Officials say the pilot's landing gear got stuck in the "up" position, and investigators are working to determine why the gear malfunctioned. Jeff Hazlett, a veteran pilot of over 25 years, was sitting on the runway, awaiting his turn to take-off when the plane came in for the landing. "You're nervous, you got a bunch of gas and metal on concrete can yield sparks, but precision he did a fabulous job. Once you get it on the runway it'll skid and stop," he said of the landing. The pilot was not injured, but was shaken up.
http://registry.faa.gov/N6615U
