A charter plane carrying 13 passengers was forced to land on its belly at Lanseria Airport, north of Johannesburg, yesterday.

The passengers, mostly from Al Jazeera's Arabic Sport crew, and two crew members of the private aeroplane charter company African Skies Aviation were on their way to Polokwane for the World Cup match between Slovenia and Algeria yesterday.

Shortly after take off, the plane's crew experienced problems with the landing gear of the Metroliner aircraft, which would not retract or extend properly.

Airport Manager Gavin Sayce told The Times the crew then "elected to fly around and burn off their excess fuel before performing an emergency landing with the undercarriage up".

Mike Christoph, the operations manager responsible for the safe arrival of the flight, described the landing as "very, very good".

"It was slow and controlled, the wings didn't dip, [the pilot] touched down in just the right spot and slid about 500m. The doors opened and the passengers disembarked - with quite a bit of speed, of course," said Christoph.

He said an aircraft maintenance engineer was taken to the control tower to speak to the pilot and the crew performed "every possible procedure" to attempt to dislodge the stuck landing gear.

"When the [propellors] hit the ground there were some sparks. I presume its pretty dramatic for the passengers but these things happen across the world," said Christoph.

Johan Opperman, marketing and public relations manager for the airport, said that the passengers and crew all escaped uninjured.

Johan Schoeman, a commercial pilot, said mechanical malfunctions of this nature were "not uncommon" and were "generally not life-threatening".

Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele yesterday commendedthe captain and crew of the Metroliner for ensuring a safe emergency landing.