A PILOT has been praised for his "impressive skill" after plane malfunction meant he had to perform an emergency landing.

The fire service, police and paramedics were called to the Dorset Gliding Club near Bovington at 12pm yesterday where a pilot, Tim Ambler, had been forced to carry out an emergency landing.

Dorset Police's Sergeant Roan Doyle said: "In attendance were three police vehicles, three fire appliances and one ambulance.

"Thanks to impressive skill on the part of the pilot, the excellent management of the gliding club, and the rapid response of all services; an emergency landing was conducted with crews on standby, no injuries resulted and only a small amount of damage was caused to the aircraft.

"A mandatory self-referral will be made by the club to the Civil Aviation Authority."

The single-engine aircraft had sustained damage to its undercarriage and landing gear.

Tug master at the club David Piercy said: "The undercarriage on the starboard side is retained by bolts. One of the bolts appears to have failed.

"The undercarriage swung down and was hanging under the airplane. The right hand leg became useless as it hung down.

"We knew there would be a problem with landing so we called in the emergency services.

"Tim stayed up there while we were talking to him on the radio, telling him what had happened.

"The he skillfully came down and landed it on the left wheel. As it slowed, he swung down very gently on the right hand side.

"We did think there would be more of a problem for him but he handled it very well - it could have been horrible.

"It's quite amazing that apart from having the bolt missing, which we will examine and see why it fell out, there doesn't seem to have been any other damage. Of course, sometimes there is something hidden.

"As well as being a tug pilot, Tim is an experienced glider pilot and that was probably very useful today."

A spokesman for the fire service said that they had dispached two crews from Swanage, one from Hamworthy and an off-road vehicle from Blandford to help.

They added: "Thankfully, it landed safely with no reports of any injuries or fire."