Nosewheel should never be anywhere near to being the first thing to hit the runway. In a Piper, for example, this would be an easy mistake to make but if you're landing a Gulfstream with the nose that low-down, you're in serious trouble.
There have been several cases of the landing gear up/down lever getting wired backwards during maintenance. Not to worry, the gear has a 'squat switch' sensor that prevents the gear from being raised when the plane is on the ground. Unless you taxi over a bump and the switch decides it's now airborne. Crunch.
This is absolutely the case. Both in cases where the gear is semi-functional, and when it is not functional at all. For reference, here is what a belly landing looks like on a 767:
> One interesting thing about the Beluga: the pilots very often fail to land them and have to do multiple attempts!
They're likely just doing a fly by for a visual inspection of the runway since it's not a major public airport with full time air traffic control.
Most people are smart enough not to park something in the middle of a runway but might not have an intuitive grasp of how large a wingspan these things have.
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