When I was little, we were flying out of Miami on Ecuatoriana airlines when we turned back after only a few minutes. Apparently, when the pilot tried to bring the landing gear up, it caught on fire. (Presumably, this was only in one location, not all the wheels).
When we went to land, we saw a row of fire engines lined up right next to the landing strip. The landing itself didn’t seem unusual, but we had to wait a while before we could disembark (unfortunately, the wheels were underneath enough that I couldn’t see anything from my vantage point).
A female passenger who was interviewed as she stepped off the plane said that they did watch the media coverage of their predicament from the plane. She said that early on the pilot had made an announcement that they were having trouble with the landing gear (after circling for three hours, they knew something was up), but that watching it on television actually made them feel a bit better because they could see what was going on (you can’t see the landing gear from inside) and because the stations called in experts to discuss the problem, which gave them even more information on the problem.
She said the pilot turned off the TVs about 30 minutes before landing, though. I can’t say that I blame him.
They turned off the TV’s before the landing so the passengers would actually pay attention to the flight attendants, who were giving important instructions.
Um… not quite. A “3-pointer” is all three wheels touching at once, which is something they didn’t want to happen this time.
And Johnny is correct - a 3-pointer is what you do with taildraggers/conventional gear, which I don’t think has been seen on an airliner since the DC-3. Passenger jets normally have “2-points-and-a-bonus-point” landings.
(You can land taildraggers on just the mains, too, but it’s not the default)
The media is always notoriously ignorant of the airline industry. Or is it that airline enthusiasts just notice their faults?
Three cheers for the JetBlue crew for putting her down safely. Although it has to be said that it really wasn’t that big a deal. Sure, with 25 stations covering it in real-time, it feels like a major catastrophy has been averted. In reality, a landing with a misalligned nose gear, or even a missing one, is a relatively controllable event. It’s much worse to have a fault in the mains!
Anyone remember the Gimli Glider? An Air Canada 767 that ran out of fuel, and landed with no nose gear and a complete loss of power. :eek:
[Bill Hicks] Now that’s special! [/Bill Hicks]
Anyways, well done JetBlue. All rationalisations aside, I would have soiled myself had I been on that 'bus.
In my grumpy pre-coffee defence, I said theyre for conventionally-geared aircraft, not that trikes don’t do them.
I inadvertantly made a three-point landing in a Cessna 172. It was a bit of a hard touchdown. (My habit was power off and full flaps. Dad always complained when he had to change the brakes, and I wanted to be sure of making the first turn-off; so I’d try to shorten the rollout.)
I did some checking, and it’s almost, kinda, sorta a special runway.
The JetBlue flight landed on runway 25 Left. 25L is LAX’s designated runway for emergency use as damaged planes may need its long length and extra width to safely land and stop.
I recall pictures of a 747 landing with a misalligned nosewheel as well. I believe it was in Australia, though I’m not sure if it was Quantas. It straightened out upon landing, no harm done.
Long story short, there are three scenarios, in order of preference:
The misalligned nosewheel straightens out when it touches the ground.
The nosewheeel stays put and scrapes (see JetBlue).
The nosewheel strut snaps off and the plane kisses the tarmac until it stops.
While the last scenario is scary, there’s plenty of examples that prove it’s not necessarily fatal. See Gimli Glider - which was a Boeing as well (all right, it didn’t really have a broken noseweheel, rather it had dumb refuelers :D).
Beats me. The article didn’t exactly give a detailed rundown by manufacturers, but it did say that landing gear difficulties are not at all uncommon so I would suppose Boeing has its share.
