MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A light plane with three people aboard landed safely without landing gear Monday after circling an Australian airport for almost three hours to burn off fuel.

The 53-year-old pilot and his passengers, a 60-year-old man and 65-year-old woman, walked unaided from the twin-turboprop Beechcraft Super King Air after landing on a runway at Newcastle Airport north of Sydney, Police Superintendent Wayne Humphrey said.

The pilot “made a textbook wheels-up landing, which I was very happy to see,” Humphrey told reporters at the airport.

Paramedics checked all three at the airport but none needed to be taken to the hospital, Humphrey said.

The plane had just taken off from Newcastle for a 180-kilometer (112-mile) flight north to Port Macquarie when the pilot raised the alarm about “issues with the landing gear,” Humphrey said.