No one was hurt when a Boeing 767 flying from New York with some 230 people on board made an emergency landing at Warsaw's airport on Tuesday after trouble with landing gear.
"All safety procedures worked perfectly fine and, thanks to this, nobody was injured," said Leszek Chorzewski, spokesperson for the Polish national flag carrier LOT, operator of the plane.
Live television footage showed the Boeing craft landing on its belly, with a few sparks flying as it hit the runway covered with flame retardant foam. There was no blaze but firefighters hosed the plane with water and foam as a precautionary measure.
Poland's President Bronislaw Komorowski said he would award state decorations to the crew of the plane after briefly talking to the pilot on the phone.
"To all those involved, I say thank you with all my heart," Komorowski told a news conference.
LOT said the hydraulic system responsible for operating the wing flaps and the landing gear failed, and backup system worked only for the flaps -- forcing the emergency landing.
Passengers were evacuated from the plane, which had circled for nearly an hour above Warsaw before landing.
The airport was due to remain closed for other flights until Wednesday morning.
Poland was shocked by an air catastrophe in April 2010, when a government plane carrying president Lech Kaczynski and 95 others, mostly senior state officials, crashed while trying to land in thick fog in western Russia, killing all on board.
