A Hellenic Air Force F-16 fighter jet made an emergency belly landing at Zakynthos International Airport on the afternoon of July 9, 2026, sliding along the runway before flames briefly appeared beneath the aircraft. The single-seat jet, assigned to the 335 Squadron of the 116 Combat Wing, had taken off from Araxos Air Base for a training flight over the Ionian Sea when the emergency unfolded.
According to the initial account, the pilot received a fire indication in the cockpit and turned toward Zakynthos, one of the busiest holiday airports in western Greece during the summer season. When the landing gear failed to extend, the pilot elected to bring the aircraft down on its belly at around 13:45 local time.
Airport firefighters had laid a strip of foam along the runway ahead of the touchdown to reduce friction and the risk of a larger fire. Flames were seen under the fuselage immediately after the jet came to rest, but crews extinguished them quickly. The pilot escaped unharmed.
Early reporting points to a suspected fuel leak as the most likely trigger for the fire warning, though the exact cause remains under investigation. The Hellenic Air Force is expected to examine the aircraft's systems and the sequence that left the landing gear unable to deploy.
The incident forced the closure of Zakynthos International Airport while the damaged jet was recovered from the runway. With the airport handling heavy tourist traffic in July, the shutdown disrupted commercial schedules until the runway could be cleared and inspected.
Belly landings, while dramatic, are a trained-for contingency. Sliding an aircraft onto its underside without gear can be survivable when the crew has time to prepare and emergency services can pre-treat the surface, as happened here. The F-16's low-slung airframe can complicate such landings, making the outcome, a pilot walking away uninjured, a relatively favourable one.
The F-16 remains the backbone of the Hellenic Air Force, which operates a large fleet of the type in several variants and has invested in upgrade programmes to keep the jets relevant for years to come. Incidents involving the type in Greek service are uncommon, and each is scrutinised closely given the fleet's central role in national air defence.
Sources: AeroTime, The Aviationist. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. By Marco Bianchi.
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