Most of us who love aviation wanted to become a pilot at some point. Unfortunately very few make it and they are the best out of the best and most lucky ones. We think flying an aircraft is the most awesome job in the world, that is why we love sharing stories about awesome pilots in the world. If you keep reading till the end, you will love this one.

Meet captain William Mahoney who is a Marine Corps pilot who did a wonderful and one of the most precise landings of all time. On June 7, 2014, Captain Mahoney took off in AV-8B Harrier from the carrier for a normal routine exercise. He thought everything was normal until he saw the gear malfunction signal soon after the took off.

He communicated with the tower of the USS Bataan from where he took off and asked if there is a problem. Captain Mahoney flew close to the ship and the crew on the ship confirmed that his nose gear was not down. Even if the Harrier is a jump jet, the nose landing gear is very important for all aircraft.

Luckily the ship had a nice invention, where they use a stool for hard situations like these. Pilot had to stabilize the aircraft and touch the nose of the jet exactly on this stool. In the following video, he explains why it was a hard job even if the harrier is a jump jet. He couldn’t see where is the stool and all he had was the ship’s lighting system which they use for land at exact locations.

Finally, he bounced the nose of the jet on the stool and made a safe landing. He further explained how he had to sit down for a minute before remembering to turn off the aircraft showing how nervous he was and how hard was a job that was to land an aircraft without the nose landing gear. All the crew congratulated the pilot after the successful landing.

You can watch the interview of the pilot and the video of the jet landing without the nose landing gear in the video down below.

Video credits: U.S. Marine Corps, Sgt. Alisa J. Helin

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