Landing a 767 on its belly is one thing — and definitely no easy feat. But what about crash-landing an old-as-hell Iranian F-5 fighter with its nose scraping the dirt?
David Cenciotti points out how unclear it is exactly what happened to screw this up so much:
We can’t be sure whether the nose gear failed to come down or it collapsed after landing: the fact that someone was filming it (from a dangerous position) suggests the emergency was known before the aircraft landed, still, ground personnel seems to be unprepared to the management of the emergency, with people and cars initially rushing towards the plane and then coming back.
Clearly something went very wrong with the American-made ride. But I suppose that comes with the territory when you’re flying a jet that’s over half a century old. Remember the good old days when we’d sell Iran weapons instead of losing them there? [The Aviationist]