{"id":141246,"date":"2026-01-28T14:58:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T14:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/141246\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T14:58:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T14:58:19","slug":"flaming-nasa-plane-makes-dramatic-belly-landing-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/141246\/","title":{"rendered":"Flaming NASA plane makes dramatic belly landing in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/dtxdaily\/status\/2016216871427518698?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Dramatic video footage<\/a> showed flames billowing from the bottom of a NASA research plane as it made an emergency belly landing at a Texas airport Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The NASA WB-57 aircraft was forced to slide gears-up \u2014 or without its landing equipment deployed \u2014 onto the runway at Ellington Airfield in Houston after it experienced a mechanical issue at around 11:30 a.m., according to the space agency\u2019s spokesperson, Bethany Stevens.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cResponse to the incident is ongoing, and all crew are safe at this time,\u201d Stevens said <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NASASpox\/status\/2016217547591295468\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">in a statement<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50146628;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38306064\" width=\"886\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/nevada-vasquez-119824177.jpg\" alt=\"NASA plane making a belly landing with flames and smoke visible under its fuselage.\" class=\"wp-image-38306064\"  \/>The NASA WB-57 aircraft was forced to slide gears-up onto the runway at Ellington Airfield after it experienced a mechanical issue around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, a NASA spokesperson said. Nevada Vasquez<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs with any incident, a thorough investigation will be conducted by NASA into the cause. NASA will transparently update the public as we gather more information,\u201d she wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Houston Fire Department personnel arrived on the scene and told local news <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ktvu.com\/news\/nasa-plan-down-ellington-field-houston\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">outlet KTVU<\/a> there had been two people on board during the terrifying ordeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50146628;display:block\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38306058\" width=\"886\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/nevada-vasquez-119824178.jpg\" alt=\"A NASA plane lands on its belly on a runway, with flames and smoke coming from beneath it\" class=\"wp-image-38306058\"  \/>Nobody was hurt in the terrifying ordeal, according to officials.  Nevada Vasquez<\/p>\n<p>It appeared the plane\u2019s landing gear had failed, the department told the outlet.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The runway was ordered closed until the plane could be removed, said Director of Aviation for Houston Airports Jim Szczesniak, who noted that \u201cfirst responders with a military subcontractor\u201d also responded to the scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft \u2014 which is designed to travel extended periods of time from sea level to altitudes higher than 63,000 feet \u2014 \u201chave been flying research missions since the early 1970s,\u201d according <a href=\"https:\/\/airbornescience.nasa.gov\/aircraft\/WB-57_-_JSC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">to NASA<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Three of the specialized planes are operated out of the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, home to the agency\u2019s WB-57 High Altitude Research Program.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dramatic video footage showed flames billowing from the bottom of a NASA research plane as it made an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6421,1911,3003,27,29,28,734],"class_list":{"0":"post-141246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-airplanes","9":"tag-nasa","10":"tag-plane-crashes","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-texas-headlines","13":"tag-texas-news","14":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}