On August 18, 2026, a NetJets Cessna Citation Longitude made a gear-up landing at Akron-Canton Airport in Ohio after its nose landing gear failed to extend on approach. Both pilots on board walked away unhurt.
What happened on approach
Flight EJA803, a Citation Longitude registered N803QS, was arriving from Washington Dulles International Airport around 12:53 p.m. local time when the crew found the front landing gear stuck in the retracted position, according to local news reports citing the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
Witnesses and firefighters told WKBN the pilots circled the airport several times before committing to land. With the nose gear still unresponsive, the crew brought the jet down on its main wheels and let the nose settle onto the runway, sliding to a stop with visible damage to the nose and underside.
Only the two pilots were aboard, a normal crew configuration for a NetJets repositioning flight with no fractional owners or passengers booked. Ohio State Highway Patrol and Akron-Canton’s own emergency operations team responded; the Ohio Department of Public Safety confirmed neither pilot was hurt.
The Citation Longitude is a super-midsize jet built by Textron’s Cessna division and one of the newer types in NetJets’ fractional-ownership fleet, typically flown with two pilots and seating up to nine passengers on trips of roughly 3,500 miles. NetJets uses it for both owner trips and the kind of empty repositioning legs this flight appears to have been flying.
Why crews circle before landing without gear
A stuck landing gear rarely forces an immediate landing. Crews typically hold overhead to run checklists for an alternate, manual gear-extension system before accepting a gear-up landing, since most jets carry a backup mechanical release for exactly this failure.
Circling also buys time to brief cabin and ground crews, coordinate priority handling with air traffic control, and, on some aircraft, burn down fuel to lighten the jet and cut fire risk before touchdown.
When the manual backup fails to free a stuck gear, as appears to have happened here, the crew’s remaining options narrow to choosing the safest possible landing configuration and runway. Akron-Canton’s fire and rescue crews positioned along the runway before the jet came down, a standard precaution for any approach where the gear status is in doubt.
Why nose-gear landings are usually survivable
Business jets touch down slower and lighter than airliners, and a nose-gear-up landing keeps the aircraft’s main wheels bearing most of the weight. The nose section is built to absorb the scrape rather than dig in, which is why these landings are typically walk-away events for a well-flown approach.
A second rough month for NetJets
The Akron-Canton landing is the second NetJets safety story in a month. In July, the NTSB tied a fatal NetJets Citation Latitude crash near Laredo, Texas to a combined fuel and electrical failure. The two events involve different aircraft models and, based on what has been reported so far, unrelated causes.
Investigation still open
No cause has been confirmed for the gear malfunction. Local officials say the FAA is looking into the landing; no NTSB or FAA statement has been issued publicly as of this writing.
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