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September 22, 2005
A good nose job
It may have looked hair-raising on tv, but the pilots who successfully landed their damaged Airbus jet Tuesday at KLAX Los Angeles International Airport did exactly what they were trained to do.
The JetBlue A320 carrying 146 people made a safe emergency landing after pilots discovered the front landing gear was stuck with the wheels turned sideways and aborted the flight to KJFK New York.
Although there were reports that the JetBlue plane was dumping fuel during the more than three hours it circled the airport before landing, the pilots were simply burning off fuel. There is no fuel-dump system on the A320.
The pilot holds the nose gear off the ground until the plane's speed is reduced to about 65 or 70 knots, or about 50 knots below the landing speed. Then the pilot gently brings the nose wheel to the runway and hits the brakes and deploys the engine thrust reversers to slow the plane as quickly as possible.
Good job.
Posted by lck at September 22, 2005 03:37 PM
