Can a large plane land without landing gear?

Can a large plane land without landing gear? Let's say you have a big passenger plane like a 747 and the runway is covered with several feet of snow. Could the crew just leave the landing gear up and land on the snow? It sounds "crazy" enough to work.|||i would dare say that ALL modern planes are designed for the possibility of some kind of 'belly landing'. This is the most common way of landing an airplane that has landing gear problems.





I've seen videos of airplanes from small Cessna's to king air corporate turbo props and even an airbus 320 landing safely on its belly on HARD CONCRETE, which is probably more dangerous than landing snow. For one, snow would reduce some fire risk, which is the main risk in this type of emergency landing.





Would it work? then answer plane and simple is YES. Albeit with a huge repair bill later on.





EDIT:


Accidentally landing without landing gear is a COMMON ERROR among young pilots flying small aircraft. It doesnt generally result in death or injury once the landing was set up correctly in all other respects. Planes are designed that way.





Capzach %26amp; Urmama:


They design the planes to be able to do this type of landing without the enines ripping off. In a big airliner, the aircraft will skid on the lower face of the engine 'nacelles'. In a prop aircraft, the tips of the prop bend easy on contact with the ground. In both cases, the engine may need to be overhaulled afterwards.|||I suppose so, cos if a pilot was stupid enough to put down the landing gear at high speeds, it would damage and they would need to do a belly landing wether they like it or not!|||did you watched the video of DC10 landing without gears on a traffic road?|||No, the landing weight of a large plane is just too much. For instance, a Boeing 747 weighs around 400,000 to 500,000 lbs. at landing, so a few feet of snow would not protect it from substantial damage in a gear-up landing situation, although there would be less damage than landing gear-up on a bare runway. In a small plane however, if your only choice was to land in very deep snow, than it could indeed be a good idea.|||no|||It would be irresponsible to belly land an airplane, except in an emergency.





Yes, they can belly land, but runway would need to be foamed and crash rescue ready. The plane will sustain heavy damage and most likely will catch fire.





If there was that much snow, the plane shouldn't be landing in the first place.|||There's something other people have not noticed yet - what about the engines!?!?!? I'm no expert but I bet all that stress would break them off on aircraft where the engines are lower than the body.





Never mind.|||As a pilot, I would never attempt an emergency landing without landing gear on snow, unless it was absolutely necessary.





The reduced braking "ability" would mean that you'd end up sliding more than on concrete (if that makes any sense). This would be even more pronounced if had uneven gear deployment.





Aircraft are designed to withstand gear up landings- if done properly. I've personally seen two small airliners (a Jetstream 41 and a Canadair Regional Jet) land with landing gear problems (both times were nose gear issues). Each time everybody walked away without any injuries.|||It would be able to land on the runway but would not really be able to move without being dragged or craned off the runway. Pilots will land without a landing gear in a lot of emergency situations. Engineers actually design planes to survive a gear-up landing|||Sure, but it beats up the airplane really severely. Items like the flaps and engines hang below the airplane's belly, so they break away in gear-up landings; and the airplane comes to rest on the keel beam, which destroys the wing wing to body fairing and scrapes or tears the belly skins.|||lol I don't know, maybe if there was 20 or 25 feet of snow on the runway, then maybe.|||Theoretically? Yes, but it better be an emergency. In reality, the crew would NEVER leave the gear up for any reason (on purpose). Reasons? No brakes, no ground steering, damage to belly, no reverse thrust (the engines would be packed with snow), damage to engines, risk of fuel leak/fire... You get the picture.





Could it work in an emergency (loss of all landing gear extension systems and emergency systems)? Probably. Would that be the first option? Nope. That is an EMERGENCY situation, and as such, the pilots would opt to go to an airport with emergency services available "just in case." An airport with a runway covered with several feet of snow wouldn't have such services available (they couldn't get to the runway!).|||It would depend on the condition and depth of the snow. I know a PIA crew landed a 747 or a DC 10 in Islamabad, Pakistan, without putting the gear down. Landing wasn't too bad, though it was noisey. It took them a week to lift the plan and lower the gear, then several months to repair the a/c for further use.|||There is a manual release for lowering the landing gear. Some large planes won't even land in the rain with the gear down. Some landings were halted at LAX last Friday due to a flooded runway. Planes landing in Alaska have a skid plate in front of the landing gear.to scoop away snow. We have all seen hydraulic failure. Airbus at LAX several months ago with the gear turned and the famous Sioux City landing. Occasionally one left or right gear doesn't come down or a lazy ramp rat rams the chocks into the wheel well thus jamming the main gear.|||no the engines will be tared apart and/or burst into flames