If you want on or off my aerospace ping list, please contact me by Freep mail.
Posted on 09/23/2005 1:46:47 AM PDT by konaice
The problems with JetBlue Flight 292 marked at least the seventh time that the front landing gear of an Airbus jet has locked at a 90-degree angle, forcing pilots to land commercial airliners under emergency conditions, according to federal records.
No one has been injured in the incidents, which span about a decade. There are more than 2,500 planes from the Airbus 320 family, which includes the Airbus 318, 319 and 321 models, in operation worldwide. Aviation safety officials Thursday said the planes have a good safety record.
In the most recent case, JetBlue's flight from Burbank to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, was forced Wednesday to make an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport. The plight of the aircraft was televised nationwide, beginning with the plane circling over the California coast and ending at an LAX runway with a landing marked by fire streaming from the plane's front wheels.
Howard Plagens, a senior air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating Wednesday's incident, called problems with landing gear "common."
At a news conference Thursday at the Proud Bird Restaurant outside LAX, he said he believed that passengers had no reason for concern about the safety of the Airbus fleet.
"How many Airbus A320s are out there?" he said, adding that the number of times the wheels have locked is small.
"Incidents happen every day" involving landing gear on all types of planes, he said.
The locking of the nose landing gear on Airbus jets is one of several recurring problems with the plane's nose landing gear.
A Canadian study issued last year documented 67 incidents of nose-landing-gear failures on Airbus 319, 320 and 321 aircraft worldwide since 1989.
[snip]
"If we find a pattern, we'll certainly do something," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Is there an 'obvious' tag??
great jet, great accomplishment...
until it isn't!
Jodie notwithstanding, one will fall..........
and then??????
Is there an 'obvious' tag??
I think he means a pattern of bodies splattered or burned to a crisp on a runway.
Speaking of runways, I hope airbus is paying to have it resurfaced now that it has a big gouge down the middle of it.
Those things should be removed from service. They are a hazzard.
I think as in, "How many ____ does it take to change a lightbulb?"
If you want on or off my aerospace ping list, please contact me by Freep mail.
It seems to me that the structure of the gear is sound, otherwise it would have collaped during that landing. Now if they could only get the mechanism to work properly.
That's sort of like that lady cop in NO with the shopping cart in the Wal-Mart who said she was looking for looters.
Well, a pattern would be if Airbus planes had more incidents of landing gear getting stuck in the wrong position, than other types of planes. Anybody else think it's a bit odd that the article makes no mention of how many such incidents have occurred with non-Airbus planes?
oops, 7 divided by 46 million, not 7 million divided by.....
"Jennifer Oldham and Megan Garvey, Times Staff Writers"
Too lazy to do the research.
Perhaps. But what are the chances of everyone in the aircraft dying of food poisioning? If that nosemount collapses and causes structural damage that results in a catastrophic fire that burns the passengers to death?
During the incident, a commercial pilot said that the media was making a bigger deal of this than it was worth.
But it was spectacular.
Nonsense. There are no documented deaths resulting from these nosewheel failures.
I'm sure the biggest fear was that the nose gear would collapse. No doubt pucker factors had increased as she rolled down the runway. They had three hours two prepare and I heard somewhere that they had moved some pax to the rear of the airplane. The pilots and their Dispatch would have been able to figure what it would take to get the landing C.G. to the safest most aft location - who knows, maybe even a bit aft of that. When she stopped two or three strong guys should have been able to almost bounce the nose off the runway. I'll look forward to reading the incident reports.
Funny, my husband is a commercial pilot and when I asked him if he caught the landing emergency on tv he replied "yea, he landed it, just like he was trained to, no biggie." :)
I am very happy though that the flight landed safely for all on board.
I followed the saga on FR, while listening to the live feed from the control tower. Not a hint of panic in the voices there. I think it was entirely the media that made this out to be a huge deal.
So that means it could never happen right?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.