MESA, Ariz. — Both people aboard a small plane walked away Saturday afternoon after the aircraft made a gear-up landing at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Mesa Fire and Medical Department said.
Crews were called around 2 p.m. for a Piper Seminole with a landing-gear problem. The department said the plane completed a gear-up landing and came to what firefighters called a harrowing stop on the airport. The two occupants got out on their own. No injuries were reported.
Firefighters checked for a fuel leak in their first search and did not find one. The aircraft was then shut down safely. The department did not describe the exact gear failure, and no names were released.
A gear-up landing means the wheels were not down and locked when the plane met the pavement, so the fuselage or remaining structure takes the slide. Airports treat that as both a rescue problem and a runway problem: fuel, sparks, and a disabled aircraft blocking operations. Gateway, which handles airline flights alongside general aviation and military traffic, can absorb a short closure more easily than a smaller field, but a disabled plane still has to be lifted and moved before the surface returns to normal use.
Mesa Fire’s account, reported by FOX 10, is the public record so far. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board typically decide later whether a gear-up event on a public airport becomes a formal investigation. Neither agency’s findings were available Saturday afternoon, and the precise mechanical fault — a failed extension, a broken indicator, or a decision to land with the gear retracted — has not been stated.
Gateway has been the site of occasional general-aviation incidents as training flights and private aircraft share the field with scheduled service. Saturday’s outcome is the one airport fire crews train for and rarely get to announce: people out, no fire, no leak, and a plane that could be made safe without a rescue from the cabin.
The airport’s longer-term effect on Saturday’s flight schedule was not detailed in the fire department’s statement. Travelers with evening departures were not given a public delay notice tied to the landing in the initial reports.