{"id":437916,"date":"2026-01-28T04:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/437916\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T04:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:51:07","slug":"nasa-research-plane-makes-fiery-touchdown-in-texas-without-landing-gear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/437916\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA research plane makes fiery touchdown in Texas without landing gear"},"content":{"rendered":"

A NASA research plane malfunctioned and had to touch down in Texas without landing gear on Tuesday, sliding across the runway on its belly and sending plumes of flame behind it, a video posted to social media showed.<\/p>\n

The crew landed the plane at Ellington Airport, southeast of Houston, and are \u201call safe at this time,\u201d NASA said in a post on X. The federal space agency added that there was \u201cmechanical issue\u201d that will be investigated.<\/p>\n

The aircraft with its distinct thin fuselage is the NASA WB-57. The plane with two crew seats is capable of flying for about 6 1\/2 hours at high altitudes \u2014 beyond 63,000 feet (19,200 meters).<\/p>\n

Video shows the plane slowly descending toward the runway, then touching down with a jolt, its wings bouncing as yellow fire and white smoke bursts from beneath it. It steadily slides down the track, the flames bursting and disappearing in a cloud of smoke. The aircraft begins to slow before the video ends. <\/p>\n

Local news footage from KHOU 11<\/a> shows the plane at a stop, the cockpit hatch open, fire trucks flashing nearby and emergency responders working around the black nose of the aircraft. <\/p>\n

The NASA WB-57 has flown research missions since the 1970s and continues to be an asset for the scientific community, according to the agency\u2019s website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A NASA research plane malfunctioned and had to touch down in Texas without landing gear on Tuesday, sliding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,2841,1443,805,18158,66,176726,306,61,544,20371,2845],"class_list":["post-437916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-general-news","tag-houston","tag-national-aeronautics-and-space-administration","tag-oddities","tag-science","tag-send-to-apple-news","tag-space","tag-technology","tag-texas","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}