JetBlue A320 Emergency Landing

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 420.

On the 21^st of September in 2005 A320 of JetBlue airline left Burbank, California, carrying 139 passengers and six crew on a transcontinental flight bound for New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Shortly after takeoff, the pilot of the Airbus received two warning lights as he tried to retract the plane's landing gear. The lights indicated there were problems with steering of the nose gear.

The flight was diverted to Los Angeles because there is longer RW there. Airbus performed a flyby over the tower and controllers discovered that the nose gear had rotated 90 degrees and become locked in down position.

Pilots decided to fly over the airport to burn the fuel as landing with nose gear locked sideways posed risk to the aircraft. So the plane remained airborne for several hours till the crew was ready to perform attempt to land. The flight attendants tried to move the passengers to the rear part of the aircraft to reduce load on the nose gear.

When touched the RW the plane continued to run on the main landing gear as long as it was possible. In 15 seconds the nose gear touched the ground, the tires rubber shredded away and friction of metal wheel led to white smoke, great number of sparks and finally flashes of flame. Apart from nose wheel the rest of the plane was undamaged and none on the board was injured.