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Plane makes emergency landing at Charlottesville Albemarle airport

Posted at 6:18 PM, May 12, 2013
and last updated 2013-05-12 18:18:02-04

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WCAV) -- A single-engine plane resorted to an emergency landing at the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport Saturday afternoon.

It was at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday that a single-engine plane coming from Winchester hit and skid across the runway after having an apparent landing gear problem.

Passengers in the terminal said an overhead announcement reported the single-engine plane landed on the runway when its landing gear malfunctioned.

Jill Piers was on her plane, ready to take off and head home to Michigan.

"The pilot came on and said that there had been a small aircraft that came in for a landing and something happend with the nose of the plane or the mechanism. So, we were not able to get out," Piers, from Holland, Michigan said.

Chris Knight, from Madison County, was on his way to Chicago. The plane he was on was too heavy so he voluntarily got off and thought he would just catch the next flight.

"Well when that happened, the small airplane hit the runway down here without landing gear so that flight was cancelled and they shut the whole runway down. So, nobody was out of here," Knight said.

The runway re-opened around 7:30 p.m. but after hearing the investigation could take hours.

Virginia State Police continue the investigation into what caused the problem.

Click here to read more on this story from WCAV.