Cause of malfunction that forced emergency landing of F/A-18 unknown

Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort maintenance crews are in Jacksonville, Fla., trying to determine what caused a fighter jet's left landing gear to malfunction Saturday while on its way from Beaufort to Florida, a base spokesman said Monday.

The F-18 fighter jet was one of three from Beaufort scheduled to perform a fly-over at Sunday's Jacksonville Jaguars game.

The pilot was forced to make a risky landing at about 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Jacksonville International Airport. The left landing gear did not come down, forcing the pilot to bring the plane down only on its nose wheels and right main landing gear, Gunnery Sgt. Chad McMeen of MCAS Beaufort said Monday.

F-18s are designed to land on three sets of wheels -- the nose gear and the other two gear under each wing, McMeen said

The plane has been moved from the airport runway to a Florida Air National Guard hangar nearby, where a "thorough investigation" will take place before the plane is repaired and sent back to Beaufort, McMeen said.

The two flyers onboard were not injured, and their names are being withheld until the investigation is complete, McMeen said.

"It's pretty amazing that the pilot was able to land that and maintain the aircraft on the runway without any injury to the pilot and crew," McMeen said.

All of the three F-18s going to Florida are two-seat aircraft -- known as the Delta model -- and are part of the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 224, McMeen said. The pilots were participating in weekend training flights.

The pilots use fly-overs as an opportunity to practice formation flights and time-on-target, a strategy in which the fighter jets arrive at the same target at a designated time, McMeen said.

"They get actual training out of it," he said.

The other two planes went on to perform at the game Sunday.

McMeen said he had few details about what caused the landing gear to malfunction.

Each landing gear on an F-18 has many moving parts, and investigators will narrow down what went wrong through the investigation, McMeen said.

The planes also have a tail hook that allows them to land within a short distance on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.