Official: Small plane landed at MacArthur with gear up

A Piper Arrow with two people on board landed at Long Island MacArthur Airport with its landing gear “inadvertently up” Thursday, causing damage to the aircraft and the closure of the runway for about an hour but no injuries, an official said.

Airport Commissioner Shelley LaRose-Arken said the incident at the Ronkonkoma airport occurred at 1:21 p.m. and that there was no crash or fire involved.

“It has retractable landing gear and it inadvertently landed with the gear up,” LaRose-Arken said. She said the belly of the plane was damaged and the aircraft towed to a mechanic station on the grounds.

LaRose-Arken said she did not know the identities of the people on board or where they had come from.

“It was a transient aircraft not based here,” LaRose-Arken said.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating why the landing gear was not deployed.

“A Piper PA-28 aircraft landed at Long Island MacArthur Airport with its landing gear in the stowed position at around 1:20 p.m. today,” FAA spokesman Jim Peters said in an emailed statement.