CNN is reporting that a Beechcraft King Air is in trouble near Atlanta. One of the main gears is not extending. The pilot will either have to get the gear down, get all of the gear up and belly it in, or bring it in on two. The last is the least desirable, since that will put it down on a wheel and a wing.
Miles O’Brien, CNN reporter and also a pilot, is doing a good job explaining what’s going on. They mentioned that the aircraft had gone through its 100-hour inspection or Annual (they didn’t say which) 25 days ago. My immediate thought was, ‘If a problem happens, it’s likely to happen right after coming out of the shop.’ O’Brien said a second later, ‘Many pilots will tell you that the most white-knuckle flight is the first one after the plane comes out of maintenance.’
This just in: The landing gear is up. Belly landing coming up?
Beautiful belly landing! 
Is a plane like that going to be toast after a belly landing, or will it fly again?
Beechcraft are pretty stoutly built, and the landing looked very soft. It came in right down the centreline, and tracked straight to a stop. The bottom skin will have to be replaced, and the props will probably have to be replaced as well (though the pilot feathered them). I’m sure it will fly again.
Perfectly understandable. If you are always overhauling a machine then it is always operating in the “infant mortality” part of the reliability curve.
The short period immediatly after manufacture or overhaul has a fairly high failure rate because of this "infant mortality’ effect. Then after the bad items are gotten rid of the failure rate settles down to a relative constant rate because of random part/manufacturing process defects. Finally the wearout point is reached and the failure rate rises again.
At the beginning of WWII the Army decided, by God we’re going to give these gurs the most best and most reliable airplanes possible. They instituted a mandatory engine overhaul after so many hours irrespective of the engine condition. The failure rate went up and they called in people who knew what they were doing and the overhaul regime was changed. After overhaul the engines were run for a burn-in period in order to get rid of infant failures. Then they were installed and left alone until they showed definite signs of wearout, such as high oil consumption, strange noises (like mechanical knocking on warmup), etc.
Henry Ford’s instruction book for the Model-T owners said, “If the car is running, leave it alone.”
I took up a Schweizer 300CB (TH-55 to you Army guys) right after its rotor blades were replaced. Literally. I had to cool my jets for about an hour waiting for them to be put on, and for the helicopter to be flown over to Van Nuys from El Monte.
I flew very carefully that flight. 
There is a very interesting article about this in the Atlanta newspaper today. Along with quotes like “textbook belly landing” and “great pilot!” is the startling data point that no one knows who the pilot was! Apparently, amid the hustle and bustle of the post landing cleanup, he and his three passengers walked away from the plane and have not been seen since. Authorities have contacted the owner of the aircraft, the insurance company and other sources but have not been able to determine who was aboard the plane. Methinks there is more to this story than meets the eye.
BTW, I did not link to the online story because it requires registration. It can be found at AJC.com, in the Metro section.
Somehow I don’t think Starfleet Academy taught him much about Beechcraft.