‘Calm, amazing pilot’: Nobody hurt as air taxi’s landing gear collapses in Anchorage

Shannon Jones, descending into Anchorage on Tuesday along with five other passengers on a Dena’ina Air Taxi flight, wasn’t aware that the plane’s front landing gear was malfunctioning.

But Jones, a school principal headed to a conference from the Southwest Alaska village of Koliganek, knew something was off when the plane flew low over Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and then began circling.

Dena’ina Air Taxi identified the pilot as Doug Ferguson, a veteran aviator who on Tuesday was making his last flight for the company before retiring.

Ferguson took the Beechcraft King Air over the airport to give ground crews a visual confirmation of the status of the landing gear, according to Josh Jacko, president and owner of Dena’ina Air Taxi. Ferguson also let company officials know there was a possible emergency while in the air, he said.

The pilot “went through all the emergency checklists more than once” and then briefed the passengers that they were “possibly landing with one landing gear not extended fully,” Jacko said in an email Wednesday. “This takes time thus the circling overhead.”

Jones said Ferguson warned passengers the flight was going to get a little bumpy on landing.

Even so, she said, everything was amazingly “normal-ish” until the last few moments. Authorities say no injuries or fuel leaks were reported. Airport officials in a prepared statement credited the pilot’s “skilled handling of the emergency situation” as key to avoiding a more serious outcome.

“He was a very calm, amazing pilot,” Jones said.

Ferguson, who has flown for Dena’ina and TransNorthern Aviation for five years, has 46 years of Alaska flight experience and more than 26,000 hours of flight time, Jacko said.

“He is awesome,” he said.

The flight originated at Merrill Field and made stops at Pedro Bay, Koliganek and Ekwok before returning to Anchorage.

The response to the emergency landing started just before 3 p.m. Tuesday, when the Airport Police and Fire Department responded to Runway 7L for a report of the incoming aircraft “reporting landing gear issues,” said department spokesman Cpl. Steve Heilman. The airport’s Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting units staged nearby for possible injuries or fuel leaks, he said.

The crews watching for potential disaster said the pilot’s aviation skills and calm demeanor saved the day, Heilman said. “He feathered the props, rode the back gear as long as he could.”

Then, when the plane’s front end finally touched down, the nose gear collapsed, he said.

Jones said the landing felt almost normal until the front came down and then a skid began.

“That was almost like in slow motion,” she recalled. “Oh, we’re looking at the sky and then slowwwwly we’re looking at the ground. He did amazing. It was one for the textbooks-type thing. If he’d done anything different, who knows what the outcome could have been.”

The pilot, six passengers and a dog in a crate all got off the plane safely, authorities said.

No fuel leaked and no injuries were reported, according to Heilman.

Dena’ina Air Taxi arranged to get the aircraft off the runway to their hangar without causing further damage to the aircraft or the runway, according to an update from the Airport Police and Fire Department.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the landing gear to fail. Jacko said the company is still investigating.

Jones, who like many rural Alaska residents has to fly every few months, said she’s returning home on Sunday on another Dena’ina Air Taxi flight.

“He did amazing,” she said of Ferguson. “I’m going to fly with the same company. It’s just part of living out here.”