Free Republic

A Jet Blue airliner landed safely at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Thursday after its pilot reported a problem with the wing flaps as the plane prepared to descend, an airline spokeswoman said. No injuries were reported. The emergency landing ..

WASHINGTON -- There have been at least seven cases in which the front wheels on Airbus A320s became stuck in a sideways position, forcing pilots to make emergency landings. No one was hurt in any of the landings, the latest of which occurred Wednesday night in front of a national television audience when a JetBlue plane touched down in Los Angeles amid smoke and sparks as the front tires disintegrated. The incidents, unnerving to be sure, are nonetheless considered anomalies and have not prompted federal authorities to take action beyond ordering airlines to follow Airbus instructions for replacing rubber seals...

Concerning the Jetblue emergency landing yesterday, a question came to me. They flew around LA for three hours using up fuel because they couldn't dump the fuel. Nothing else was wrong with the plane, so why didn't they fly to NY (their destination) and land there? What does it matter where the landing took place? At least everybody would have been where they were going,and the fuel wouldn't have been wasted. Am I nuts here?

...The landing gear had not retracted, the pilot said. ... The back of each seat on a JetBlue plane is equipped with a small television set. As passengers watched, live, in-flight broadcasts of MSNBC and Fox News began to show their airplane. Ash glanced at the television of the passenger next to him: "At first I just thought, 'Of course, Fox News,' " he said, discounting the story as sensationalized. "But then it was on MSNBC." ... But his humor faded as he listened to television commentators talking about the flight. "One guy was saying, 'You know, I'm just speculating,...

After looking carfully at the replays of the JetBlue landing tonight, I noticed during landing that the nosegear flames and fires were pulsing on and off during the landing. The flames became quite fierce during the "roll"out of the aircraft, but would diminish and suddenly flame-on strongly again. If you watch the landing carefully, you will see the times that the flames pulse on are the moments when the nose gear is scraping on the painted stripe on the runway. This is very significant. The FAA, airlines and manufacturers are always concerned with fire and especially fire avoidance and fire...

LOS ANGELES – A JetBlue airliner with faulty landing gear touched down safely Wednesday evening at Los Angeles International Airport after circling the region for three hours with its front wheels turned sideways and unable to retract into the plane. As passengers inside the plane watched the drama unfold on television sets in the cabin, the pilot landed using the back wheels first and then easing onto the front tires. The front wheels smoked, popped and sparked as the plane rolled to a stop on an auxiliary runway set apart from the main terminals. No one was hurt. "We all...

<p>Moments ago, there was a safe landing of JetBlue light 292 out of Burbank that was bound for JFK.</p> <p>I can report exclusively from a secret source under deep cover that Hillary Clinton and John Conyers are going to demand a Congressional investigation. President George W. Bush must be held accountable.</p>

A Jet Blue aircraft just did a low altitude flyby of Long Beach airport after reporting some concern with their forward gear. The television helicopter caught an image of it - the gear is turned sideways and tilted. Aircraft is heading out towards the ocean to drop fuel, will turn around, and attempt a 'soft field' landing, keeping the nose up as long as possible.

By Patrick Markey NEW YORK (Reuters) - A JetBlue Airways pilot waiting for take-off at John F. Kennedy International Airport saw the American Airlines flight that crashed on Monday as it fell from the sky accompanied by smoke and a smaller piece of the aircraft, according to an internal report. The pilot told the JetBlue officials that in its final moments American Airlines Flight 587 appeared to be in a very steep descent, falling nose down at about 80 degrees in a spiral dive. Before it exploded on impact, the aircraft was accompanied by the smaller piece above and to ...

AIRPORT DISTRICT -- Passengers on Tuesday morning's inaugural flight of JetBlue service between Burbank and New York City were treated to New York-style hot dogs and pretzels in the terminal. And airport fire vehicles sprayed water over the airplane as it approached the gate. Delia Ibarra, of Los Angeles, was the first passenger to get off the plane after it pulled up to Gate A9 at Bob Hope Airport. "We used to come to Long Beach [Airport] but this is so much better for us," Ibarra said. "I am so excited." JetBlue's three daily nonstop flights are the first service...

Sees sights after G.I. helped him get lifesaving surgery An Afghan boy brought to the U.S. last month for a heart operation after a soldier took up his cause came to New York yesterday to sightsee and show off the boundless energy of a typical 12-year-old. "Before, I cannot walk so much," Assadullah Khan said during the whirlwind trip with his father and interpreter to meet the "nice people" who helped save his life. "Now, I walk everywhere. I can walk and run." Until last month's operation to patch a hole in his heart, Assadullah could barely walk across a...

Big companies are hoping to marry their brands to gays and lesbians this weekend — about 20,000 of them. In the first days after the presidential election — in which gay marriage proved to be a pivotal issue — the nation's biggest exposition on homosexual life is setting attendance records. Booths for exhibitors are also sold out for the first time at the Javits Center, which since 1999 has hosted Gay Life Expo, one of the center's liveliest trade shows. Companies ranging from Citigroup and American Express to Jet Blue and J.P. Morgan Chase are hawking their offerings to the...

...Bloody-minded optimists say... the climactic shake-out is finally upon us. Once the cleansing is done, the airlines will go back to being profitable and sustainable like "normal" industries. Don't bet on it. Airlines have shown an ability to mint short-term profits in an economic bounceback when demand grows faster than they can lay on more jets and gates. But that's not the same thing as being able to make profits consistently enough to pay back the capital invested in the industry. The airlines have never been able to do this, at least not since deregulation.... Airports, meanwhile, are local monopolies...

Please don't fly JetBlue Airways--as George Soros is the major stockholder in that airline. Every time you fly JetBlue (stock symbol JBLU)--you are helping to fund George Soros's efforts to defeat the President! http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=JBLU By checking the ownership of JetBlue--you'll see that Soros himself owns 5,896,797 shares of JBLU--worth about $150,000,000.Soros Fund Management, LLC, owns 11,803,916 shares of JBLU--worth about $298,000,000! Please pass the word about JetBlue and George Soros!!!!

NEW YORK - JetBlue Airways Corp. said it plans to exercise options to buy 30 Airbus A320 aircraft. The discount carrier did not disclose financial terms when announcing the decision on Tuesday. The move means JetBlue now has firm orders for 123 A320s and holds options on 50 more. For now, the Forest Hills, N.Y.-based airline's fleet consists of 60 A320s. It expects to receive nine more this year and delivery of up to 17 a year until 2012. The A320, a single-aisle aircraft that typically seats 150, is made by Airbus North America Holdings, a subsidiary of Airbus S.A.S....

<p>If you'd be happy to fly seated next to the next Mohamed Atta, then don't worry about the crusade to cancel the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System. If you do want terrorists kept off planes, start worrying about the smear campaign now underway in the name of "privacy." Our nation's intelligence agencies failed to "connect the dots" before 9/11. And a left-right alliance of privacy extremists is doing its best to keep it that way: These "privocrats" have shot down nearly every proposal to use intelligence more effectively, terming them an assault on "privacy."</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — Federal employees who persuaded JetBlue Airways to give a defense contractor personal information about 1.5 million passengers — without their knowledge or permission — will have to undergo training about privacy issues. Employees of the Transportation Security Administration broke the spirit, but not the letter, of federal privacy laws, Nuala O'Connor Kelly, the chief privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security, said Friday. She said fewer than six current employees were involved.</p>

<p>A Pentagon contractor may have violated privacy laws by collecting personal information on more than 1 million JetBlue Airways customers to develop passenger profiles, according to key senators.</p> <p>The contractor, Torch Concepts, said it used the names, addresses and phone numbers in a data-mining program to "best distinguish normal JetBlue passengers from past terrorists."</p>

According to the document, JetBlue secretly provided 5 million passenger-name records, involving some 1.5 million passengers, to a Huntsville, Alabama-based defense contractor called Torch Concepts, which government officials say was participating in a military base security program for the Defense Department. One of Torch Concepts' vendors, Little Rock-based Acxiom Corporation, then used the JetBlue data to extrapolate Social Security numbers and other private information on almost half these customers, according to the document, which was a Torch Concepts presentation on passenger risk assessment. ... A December 2002 Defense Department report on security and privacy, which can be found on the...

WASHINGTON - When two Russian immigrants and their American financial backer needed marketing help for their innovative electric motor, they turned to a merchant banker at one of the nation's largest investment houses - retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark. The meeting at the Washington office of Stephens Inc. in late 2001 proved fortuitous for both Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO, and the principals in WaveCrest Laboratories, at the time a small research and development company in Dulles, Va. "They hit it off pretty much right away," said WaveCrest spokesman Tom McMahon. Clark signed on as a consultant...