TOKYO, March 13 (Xinhua) -- An All Nippon Airways (ANA) domestic passenger flight made an emergency landing safely in central Japan's Kochi Airport on Tuesday morning without front landing gear.

    The plane and all the 56 passengers and four crew members onboard were safe although the nose landing briefly produced strong sparks, local TV footage showed.

    The DCH-8 twin-turboprop Bombardier departed from Osaka International Airport at around 8:10 a.m. local time and was scheduled to land at Kochi airport on southwestern Japan's Shikokuisland at about 8:55 a.m., the Japanese transport ministry said.

    The plane made an abortive landing attempt at about 10:30 a.m., when it touched down the runway with its rear landing gear and took off again to hover in the air.

    After running out fuel, the plane made a successful emergency landing at about 10:55 a.m..

    Firefighting vehicles gathered around the front of the plane and poured liquid to cool it before all the passengers got down from a front gate 15 minutes after the emergency landing.

    The plane was produced in June 2005 by the Montreal-based Bombardier Aerospace Corp. of de Havilland Canada, Kyodo News said.

    Reason of the landing gear problem is under investigation and ANA said it will conduct an emergency checkup of all its remaining 12 planes of the type.