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Navy plane makes emergency landing

Transport plane touches down in Virginia without landing gear

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The pilots shut down one of the engines before landing.

(CNN) -- A Navy transport airplane with 25 passengers and crew aboard made a belly landing Monday evening at a naval airfield in Norfolk, Virginia, after its main landing gear failed to descend.

All aboard the C-2 Greyhound left the plane safely after it landed at an airfield on the Navy base at Norfolk, the headquarters of the U.S. Atlantic fleet.

The landing gear near the plane's nose came down as it approached Norfolk, but the main landing gear did not emerge from the wheel wells.

The C-2 is a twin-engine turboprop designed to ferry people and cargo to aircraft carriers offshore. One engine was shut down before the landing, and the nose gear was raised.

Ground crews deployed an arresting cable to snag the plane's tailhook and bring it to an abrupt halt on the runway.

"It's just the same kind of arresting gear that they use onboard aircraft carriers," said John Massey, a helicopter pilot with Virginia's WAVY-TV who captured the incident on video.

Sparks were visible as the plane touched down. The passengers and pilots swiftly piled out of the aircraft. No serious injuries were reported.

Massey told CNN from his helicopter that the plane circled the area for hours as the crew went through emergency procedures.

The crew, he said, "went by the book to determine exactly what they were going to have to do in order to get this aircraft on the ground safely."

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