JetBlue A320 landing at LAX
 

With landing gear problems...

Reporter said they couldn't retract the landing gear, happened at my airline when the engineer used his own gear pin without a flag and of course no tech log entry. Don't quite understand why they are circling unless there is some other type of situation not explained, if they're trying to get down to MLW it will take sometime.

Dream Land::confused:

Not trying to 2nd-guess this crew - I'm sure they're doing everything they can, but....

Having had this very same situation happen to me in the RAF, with a severly screwed-up landing gear geometry, I might have been tempted to take this A-320 to Edwards AFB - plenty of run-off room there if the jet goes crazy-Ivan, like mine did. Plenty of time to get extra ARFF there from Palmdale, Goerge, Ont, etc.
The dirt might slow the jet better, too.

Will the 320's FBW let you hold the nose off, BTW?

BEST OF LUCK, GUYS... :ok:

If he were in a time-critical situation he would land ASAP. He's in no hurry, just trying to get the weight down as much as he can.

From the MSNBC cable channel:
The National Transportation Safety Board Web site reported that a similar incident with an A320 occurred on an America West flight in February 1999 in Columbus, Ohio. The agency found the cause was a failure of the external o-rings in the nose landing gear steering module. The plane landed safely.

They are interviewing a pilot from America West who had a similar situation on a B-727 in 1988. However, they apparently landed without realizing the nose gear was askew. He recalled a lot of vibration, so much that instruments were not readable, a lot of dust in the cockpit, and a big black stripe down the center of the runway.

They will be landing on 25L

18 miles out and will attempt an approach now apparently.

He's just been handed over to the tower.

Nice job those guys. Need a couple of tyres and wheels from stores.

Good job - no apparent trauma. But a long skid mark!

Except the centerline will need a repaint!
Amazing.

Sure was a bright flame during the skidding. Does anyone know if the wheels are magnesium?

Hoss,
The fire was probably the oil in the oleo burning.
As the bottom of the shock strut grinds away the oil comes out under pressure.

The whole thing was live here on TV. The flying side was prefect but is it me or did the first fire truck seem to take a long time ??

Must have been interesting watching the coverage from inside the plane (JetBlue has DirecTV at every seat). Would the crew have shut it off?

Superb job by the crew!!

During the landing, MSNBC had as the commentator, Captain Al Haynes, who commanded United 232. Captain Haynes' DC-10 had a lot more wrong with it when it made its landing attempt at Sioux City Iowa in 1989.

Meatloaf, MSNBC reported that the TVs were turned off. Employees of NBC on the plane said that the television was turned off three to four minutes before landing, along with the air conditioning. Prior to that, the passengers were watching the progress of the flight on the cable news channels.

By my rough count, the first airport fire engine was alongside the plane 22 seconds after the plane stopped.

Hats off to the guys/girls in the front, very nicely done.

I noticed they didn't use the reversers or spoilers when they touched down. Can someone i the know please explain why not?

no reverse to keep weight back off the nose

No reversers?
 

Actually, I think reversers might have taken a little load off the nose gear. Maybe not - they're below the center of mass so would create a nose-down moment.

But there were other considerations - maybe they wanted to avoid Foreign Object Damage to the engines (from nosegear debris). With that long a runway I doubt they were in a huge hurry to stop.

FYI, the ABC news radio aviation commentator stressed that this is what happens when you have good pilots and don't skimp on training. Kind of with an implication that some other airlines don't.

This has happened to the A320 3 or 4 times before. It starts with a shock absorber which does not extend, and the gear won't retract. It can be accompanied by a nosewheel steering fault which results in the wheels being offset by 90 degrees. The reason for no reverse is that the fault results in a dual Landing Gear Control & Interface Unit failure, which disables the reversers. Not sure why the spoilers didn't deploy.

It's the second occurrence in JetBlue & would you believe it - the same skipper was in command! Old hat to the guy but he must have been chanting "why me again?"

Well done - great job!

I just read this thread hours later and cannot believe how you all could take part in this frantic media hype. I thought that ppruners are immune against blown up media sensations.

Did you expect the blood running out of the plane when it crashed? :E:

Here some calm thoughts:
Fuel dumping. No short haul aircraft has this ability. Only long haul, they have to take so much fuel, that their max take-off weight is considerably higher than their max landing weight. An A320 can land with its maximum take-off weight, but you should run through a long checklist (verify runway is long enough aso). The same with B737, MD80, F100...

landing with abnormal gear configuration: Airbus checklist recommends not to arm GND SPLRS (although only for main landing gear problems), which means, they will not extend. It might give an additional kick during touchdown which could worsen the situation. But that's pure speculation from my side. The same reasoning might have been behind not using reversers: Land it soft and keep the nose wheel as long as possible in the air, until horizontal stabiliser no longer effective. Then you have the least force on the nose wheel.

Dani