DRAMATIC footage shows the moment a plane carrying 231 people landed on its belly on live television.
The resurfaced video shows the pilot safely bring the jet down in Warsaw, Poland, without its wheel out after its landing gear failed to open.
In 2011, while on a flight from Newark, New Jersey, the pilots of a Polish LOT airlines flight identified an issue with the landing gear just before they were preparing to land.
They circled about the airport for about an hour before hitting the tarmac without the wheels down.
The miraculous landing was watched live by millions who were relieved when the jet safely came to a stop.
It triggered sparks and a small fire – but no one was injured.
LOT airlines president Marcin Pirog said at the time: “There was no panic among the passengers.
“The cabin crew prepared them for the emergency landing well.
“It is the first time a LOT plane had to land without the landing gear out.”
The clip has re-emerged in the wake of Sunday’s plane crash in South Korea that killed 179.
Pilots on the doomed Jeju Air plane were forced to make a similar landing.
But unlike the landing in Poland, it ended in disaster as all but two of the 181 on board were killed.
The jet hit the tarmac at Muan International Airport at high speed before smashing into a concrete wall and exploding into a fireball.
An aviation specialist, Julian Bray, acknowledged that the pilots of the Polish aircraft were in a potentially advantageous position as they still had two engines functioning and sufficient time to follow all necessary emergency protocols.
The cause of the crash is being probed – but the pilot issued a mayday call and reported a bird strike before making the emergency landing.
Mr Bray said: “You’ve got to remember they had one damaged or one engine that was out, so already the whole aircraft was compromised.
“You don’t know what damage had been done to the generation systems, the electricity systems.
The situation was delicate as the pilots needed to assess if they were operating on reserve electrical power due to a malfunction in the generator, which was crucial for operating hydraulic pumps to enable the landing gear deployment and various other vital functions.
“So if he hasn’t got that, he’s got a problem, so he’s taken the view that he’s got to get this down.
“He tries to get it down first of all, that doesn’t work so he does a go around.
“He might have got the wheels down for the first landing and then something when he takes the wheels back up to complete the go around, there might have been a bird nest and that might have fouled up the system.
“We don’t know – we’re going to have to find out.
“The point is the wheels go up, they’re locked and that’s it, they remain locked. So he hasn’t got a lot of time, and he’s got a lot of things distracting him.”
Mr Bray also pointed out that the South Korean jet hit the tarmac at a much higher speed before crashing into a wall.
All those on board the flight are thought to have been Korean except for two Thai nationals – marking the fatal crash as one of the darkest days in recent memory for Koreans.
The passenger plane is thought to have hit a bird on its approach to Muan International Airport – crippling the plane’s landing gear.
Video shows it approaching the airport when its right engine was struck.
The collision may have forced the pilot to shut down the damaged engine as he wrestled to control it in the sky.
Several attempts to land were aborted by the pilot before a final decision was made to attempt it.
The aircraft quickly slammed into the tarmac as the pilot tried to land safely.
But the pilot’s heroic landing was all done in vain as it continued to speed off the end of the runway.
Seconds later it smashed into a concrete wall at the end of the 2,800-metre runway.
The plane instantly exploded after hitting the structure.
The impact is believed to have set off the fireball by rupturing fuel tanks.
