JUDGE LANDS SAFELY AT AIRPORT DESPITE LANDING GEAR TROUBLES

With 40 years experience as a pilot - including four years in the Navy landing on aircraft carriers - Cape Girardeau Circuit Judge A.J. Seier has handled his share of in flight problems.

But Friday evening, Seier had his first experience landing without a nose wheel when efforts to get the wheel down failed and he had to land on two wheels. The incident led to closure of the airport and emergency services vehicles were dispatched to standby.

"If you are going to lose one, the best one to do without is the nose," said Seier.

"Every pilot knows that a landing is nothing more than a controlled crash. The only thing this time is the emphasis was on crash rather than control."

Seier, who estimates he has between 5,000 and 6,000 hours of flying time, said he never was worried about landing safely. He patiently went through the pilot check list of methods to get landing gear down, but to no avail.

The entire incident lasted about 30 minutes and he landed safely around 6:40 p.m. The airplane Seier was flying, a Cessna 310, went about 900 feet on the nose after the landing; damage to the plane was minimal.

Randy Holdman, manager of the Cape airport, was about to go home for the day to take his wife out to dinner when the landing gear incident was reported. Holdman explained that the flight service tower followed routine policy by calling the fire and police departments to standby at the airport.

Holdman said Seier did a good job bringing the plane down.

After Seier reported his problem to the tower, Holdman said, "We waited a while so he could burn a little fuel and to get some other planes out. It appears there was mechanical failure on the nose wheel; there was no way to get it down."

Holdman said the FAA termed it an "incident" rather than an "accident."

Seier had planned to do his biennial flight proficiency test Friday afternoon, but it had to be rescheduled. So he took his daughter, Debbie Steger, 7-year old granddaughter Betsy Steger, and Robert LaBarreare up to fly around the clouds. After flying about 40 minutes, Seier was practicing for his test by making a ILS approach and reported from the outer marker at Dutchtown.

As he put the gear down to start the approach, a light indicated the nose wheel was not in place.

Seier attempted to cycle the landing gear several times, lower the wheel manually, and tried to bounce it down. Everything failed.

"I told the tower, if anybody had any ideas, I was ready to listen," said Seier. He patiently reviewed his options and prepared to land.

During his years of flying, Seier said he has had landing gear problems before but has always been able to get the gear down using other methods. "This was the first time `none of the above' worked," quipped the judge.

"I was never really worried and don't think the landing was anything out of the ordinary ... you've got to come down sometime."

As Seier prepared to land, he was caught be surprise by all the emergency services vehicles waiting on him. "I thought the entire fire department was down there," said Seier. "I looked down the runway and there was a truck on every taxiway. I was embarrassed; I did not ask for all those people. I knew there would be no injuries. We had plenty of fuel and good weather."

Seier's granddaughter was impressed by the display of fire trucks, but oblivious to the reason for their presence.

"She saw the crash equipment and trucks and said `mommy, somebody must be hurt down there.'"

Betsy Steger also found her grandpa's landing to be about normal - even without the nose wheel.

Asked whether the landing was rough, she replied: "It didn't feel different than any other one."

While Betsy was unaware of the problem, Debbie Steger and LaBarreare were and admitted being concerned through the ordeal that led up to the safe landing.

"Nervous isn't the word for it," remarked LaBarreare.