belly landing

British

noun

the landing of an aircraft on its fuselage without use of its landing gear

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Video footage showed the plane making a belly landing - without its landing gear deployed - on the tarmac and skidding into a concrete barrier.

From BBC

Huge crowds, bad weather, inability of some airline crews to reach their scheduling offices — even a Delta jet that made a belly landing in Charlotte, North Carolina — all contributed to the mess.

From Seattle Times

Airbus recently delayed the entry to service by at least three months to early 2024 to allow part of the lower fuselage to be modified amid regulators' concerns over the risk of fire in the event of a belly landing, due to its fuel tank design.

From Reuters

An air traffic controller asks whether it is going to carry out a "belly landing", to which the pilot replies "mayday, mayday, mayday" - the final communication from the plane.

From BBC

An air traffic controller asks whether it is going to carry out a "belly landing", to which the pilot replies "mayday, mayday, mayday".

From BBC

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023