Airplane landing gear falls from the sky onto golf course

A plane’s wheel, rather than a birdie, fell onto the seventh fairway

A plane’s landing gear that fell onto a gold club in Maine (Gorham Police Department)

A golf course in Maine has an additional hole after a plane’s landing gear fell off mid-flight, leaving a small crater on the seventh fairway.

Aviation authorities told NECN that the twin-engine aircraft took off with five passengers onboard when its right-side wheel and a strut fell off. It was coming into land when the incident unfolded on Tuesday evening.

The aircraft, which was was aiming for the International Jetport in Portland, Maine, was forced to turn around and perform an emergency landing on Long Island, in New York. There were no reports of injuries.

Aviation authorities reportedly told the Gorham County Club, a golf club roughly 10 minutes away from the Jetport, and about 10 miles west of Porland, that the landing gear had fallen on its course.

Ted Hatch, of the Gorham Police Department, wrote on Facebook that “there were two miracles in this event” because the plane “was able to do a belly landing and landed safely”, and “nobody was struck by this falling object when it fell on the 7th fairway from the sky”.

“Just when you thought you have seen everything, things really do fall from the sky,” he added, along with images of the landing gear on the fairway, and a large hole that has been left behind.

The Gorham Country Club reportedly handed the wheel and strut to federal aviation investigators, and a probe into the incident is ongoing.

On Thursday, an amateur golfer on the course, Michael Sweeney, told NECN that planes headed to the International Jetport often fly over the course, but that he was surprised to find "a hole on the fairway that's all roped off”.

"I never really thought it would happen," he added. "It's just one of those crazy circumstances. Thankfully no one go hurt, no one was in the wrong place.”