An All Nippon Airways (ANA) domestic passenger flight made an emergency landing safely in central Japan's Kochi Airport on Tuesday morning without front landing gear.

 

The plane and all the 56 passengers and four crew members onboard were safe although the nose landing briefly produced sparks, local TV footage showed. All the passengers went out of the plane from a front gate shortly after the emergency landing and got on airport shuttle buses.

 

The DCH-8 twin-turboprop Bombardier departed from Osaka International Airport around 8:10 AM and was scheduled to land at Kochi airport on southwestern Japan's Shikoku island at about 8: 55 AM, the Japanese transport ministry said.

 

The plane failed to lower its front landing gear and hovered above the airport for roughly two hours before making the emergency landing at about 10:55 AM.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 14, 2007)