A cargo plane departing Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport was forced to crash land at Merrill Field Airport near downtown Anchorage on December 8th. The plane lost power to its right engine, and landed without the landing gear deployed. This is known as landing “wheels up”.
The plane is a DC3 that was built in 1952. The DC3 used to be a staple in travel and transport in the middle of the 20th century.
The pilot made the decision to not drop the landing gear in order to decrease drag in order to make it to the airfield. You can see in the video below that the plane chopped off the top of trees near the airfield. It just barely made it.
Thankfully, nobody was injured in the incident. Check out the crazy video for yourself below! The audio of the communications between the pilot and air traffic control has been overlaid with the various footage captured of the event!