Classic NASA Jet Skids to a Fiery Cease in Dramatic ‘Wheels-Up’ Touchdown

Certainly one of NASA’s classic analysis plane made a gear-up touchdown at a Houston airport attributable to an unidentified mechanical drawback, sliding its manner throughout the runway whereas leaving a fiery path behind.

A video of WB-57 exhibits the high-altitude plane throughout its exhausting touchdown on the Ellington Airport late Tuesday morning, KHOU 11 first reported. NASA later confirmed that the two-person crew on board the plane was unhurt and that its response to the incident is ongoing.

Video exhibits a NASA analysis aircraft sliding alongside the runway at Ellington Airport after making a gear-up touchdown Tuesday morning. https://t.co/aqC7z1IMTu pic.twitter.com/UrZQ0W514q

— KHOU 11 Information Houston (@KHOU) January 28, 2026

“As with every incident, an intensive investigation shall be carried out by NASA into the trigger,” the area company wrote on X. “NASA will transparently replace the general public as we collect extra data.”

Tough landing

NASA’s Johnson Area Middle operates three WB-57 plane, which have been utilized in a number of atmospheric and Earth science analysis missions, in addition to for testing new airborne and spaceborne devices. The plane have been flying because the early Nineteen Seventies, with a most altitude of 60,000 ft and a flight length of as much as seven hours.

In response to data from Flightradar24, the plane concerned in Tuesday’s incident had already flown earlier that day and was on its third flight when the problem occurred, Aviation Week reported. Earlier than that, NASA transported the WB-57 again to Houston from California on January 15, probably utilizing it to watch a hypersonic take a look at flight.

Following the gear-up touchdown, the WB-57 plane might have sustained some injury to the decrease fuselage however in any other case remained intact. Emergency crews at Ellington Airport responded to the incident, and officers closed the runway till crews eliminated the plane, based on KHOU 11.

Modified plane

The WB-57 is a modified model of the Martin B-57 Canberra. The English Electrical Firm started creating the aircraft within the Nineteen Forties, and the U.S. Air Power later adopted it to interchange the Douglas B-26 Invader.

The Air Power used the B-57 in the course of the Vietnam Warfare for nighttime bombing missions and high-altitude surveillance. NASA later acquired the plane and modified them for reconnaissance missions, probing clouds, flying above hurricanes, and finding out the impact of plumes from rockets on the stratosphere.

Two of the three B-57 plane are at the moment present process main inspections—one scheduled to complete on February 16, and the opposite on indefinite maintain, based on NASA. The plane concerned in Tuesday’s incident is the one one to have flown not too long ago.