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Denny Yen

JetBlue emergency landing in LAX

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A320; "Canyon Blue"; N536JB; C/N 1784; Burbank to JFK.

Nose gear failed to retract properly after takeoff, 90deg to the left. 140 pax and a crew of 6. Landed safely at LAX PST 18:20

 

NBC News was the first to break the news because an NBC producer was onboard, and used his Blackberry to inform NBC center.

 

Excellent airmanship displayed by pilots and crew. Pilot said on CNN, "There is one thing I did wrong, I landed the plane 6 inches off the center line.

p/s: A/c should now be renamed as "Miracle Blue"

 

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Edited by Denny Yen

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Just watched the landing on the news. Spectacular landing I must say.

 

The pilots even managed to keep the aircraft dead centre on the runway. Well done to those pilots for a job well done.

 

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With "Direct TV" on board, passengers could see "their" own emergency landing on screen, I suppose ohmy.gif

 

Great series of pictures: thanks for sharing, Denny wink.gif

 

Rozhan,

 

It shows the sturdiness of the nosewheel construction rolleyes.gif

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wow, i looked at bbc video, wow the tyre and the wheel gone after complete stop! amazing that the gear didnt collapse!

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I noticed when A320's nose gear is fully extented it is slightly angled to the front instead of straight down. Probably this has contribute the extra "Oomph" it needed to withstand the sear force of such landing.

 

Ben-G

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Ben G,

 

Nose landing-gear of the A320 is always slightly angeled...see various shots at A.net for instance wink.gif

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With "Direct TV" on board, passengers could see "their" own emergency landing on screen, I suppose  ohmy.gif

8206[/snapback]

 

Yes

 

LOS ANGELES - The airliner circled Southern California for hours, crippled by a faulty landing gear, while inside its cabin 140 passengers watched their own life-and-death drama unfolding on live television.

 

While satellite TV sets aboard JetBlue Flight 292 were tuned to news broadcasts, some passengers cried. Others tried to telephone relatives and one woman sent a text message to her mother in Florida attempting to comfort her in the event she died.

 

"It was very weird. It would've been so much calmer without" the televisions, Pia Varma of Los Angeles said after the plane skidded to a safe landing Wednesday evening in a stream of sparks and burning tires. No one was hurt.

 

Varma, 23, and other passengers said the plane's monitors carried live DirectTV broadcasts on the plane's problems until just a few minutes before landing at Los Angeles International Airport.

 

The landing gear trouble — the front wheels were stuck in a sideways position — was discovered almost immediately after the plane departed Bob Hope Airport in Burbank at 3:17 p.m., en route to New York City.

 

The Airbus A320 circled the Long Beach Airport, about 30 miles south of Burbank, before being cleared to land at Los Angeles. It stayed in flight for three hours to burn off fuel, said

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Donn Walker.

 

Zachary Mastoon of New York said it was "surreal" to watch his plane's fate being discussed on live TV while it was in the air. At one point, he said, he tried to call his family, but his cell phone call wouldn't go through.

 

"I wanted to call my dad to tell him I'm alive so far," the 27-year-old musician said.

 

The pilot finally brought the plane down, back wheels first. As he slowly lowered the nose gear, the stuck wheels erupted in smoke and flames, which quickly burned out.

 

"At the end it was the worst because you didn't know if it was going to work, if we would catch fire. It was very scary. Grown men were crying," said Diane Hamilton, 32, a television graphics specialist.

 

As the plane was about to touch the ground, Hamilton said crew members ordered people to assume a crash position, putting their heads between their knees.

 

"They would yell, "Brace! Brace! Brace!'" she said. "I thought this would be it."

 

Lisa Schiff, 34, of Los Angeles sent a text message to her mother in Miami that said: "I love you. Don't worry about me. If something happens, know that I am watching you and Daddy and (her brother) David."

 

Emergency crews from across the area met the plane on the runway. Spectators gathered on buildings and stood on parked cars to see firsthand as passengers walked down a stairway onto the tarmac with their carryon luggage.

 

Some passengers shook hands with emergency workers and waved to cameras. One firefighter carrying a boy across the tarmac put his helmet on the child's head.

 

"We all cheered. I was bawling. I cried so much," said Christine Lund, 25, who was traveling with her cat.

 

She and the other passengers were taken by bus from the tarmac to the airport's international terminal. The plane was towed to a hangar, and the runway where it touched down was closed for about three hours, but no flights were delayed or canceled, officials said.

 

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who spoke with the pilot, identified him as Scott Burke and praised him for the calm he showed during the flight.

 

"He joked that he was sorry he put the plane down 6 inches off the center line," Villaraigosa said.

 

Ann Decrozals, an Airbus spokeswoman at the aircraft manufacturer's headquarters in France, said the A320 was designed to be able to land with front wheel problems.

 

JetBlue spokeswoman Jenny Dervin said the airline was investigating the incident with the FAA and

National Transportation Safety Board. She declined to identify the pilot and first officer.

 

About 57 of the passengers were placed on another flight, which arrived at New York's Kennedy Airport at 6:05 a.m. EDT Thursday, said airline spokeswoman Sharon Jones. Others were put up in Los Angeles area hotels and given reservations for Thursday flights. Still others simply returned home.

 

Among the latter group was Varma, who was greeted by her parents at the terminal.

 

"It started out just being a ghastly birthday, but now it's just fabulous, " said her father, Anil, who turned 51 on Wednesday.

 

JetBlue, based in New York, is a five-year-old low-fare airline with 286 flights a day and destinations in 13 states and the Caribbean. It operates a fleet of 81 A320s.

 

A similar problem with sideways landing gear struck an America West Airbus A320 in 1999. That plane landed safely at Port Columbus International Airport in Ohio, and no one was injured.

 

A 5 years old airline already have 81 aircrafts ohmy.gif

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Isaac,

Blackberry is a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant).

Edited by Imran K.

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Read on CNN that the A320 cannot dump fuel?!!  Is this true?

 

Yes. The A320 can still land safely with full tanks if the situation warrants. In this case, it's better to circle to burn off fuel... just in case.

 

BTW, the 737, 757 and most regional jets can't either.

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Well, looking at the lighter side of things, at least there's free cameo for AA, SIA and MAS laugh.gif

Edited by H Azmal

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Well, looking at the lighter side of things, at least there's free cameo for AA, SIA and MAS laugh.gif

8257[/snapback]

 

And Air NZ as well.

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yes of course the grease will still be there. notice that the grease is inside the wheel bearings, so it wasn't burnt during the tyre explosion. too bad i didn't take a photo of the Piper Cherokee's landing gear that i was working on earlier, or you'll get to look at various parts of the undercarriage, for a small aircraft that is. rolleyes.gif

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