Wasn't that a work of art, the way that skilled pilot brought in, with such finesse and perfection, the crippled plane into LA airport? It has given me a fresh appreciation of the vital role, skill and training that a pilot possesses. All hail to this man, and his crew and support team.
My twelve year old daughter and I watched it last night. I have to admit, we were both saying a prayer hoping that everything turned out for the best. Of course the news media had ever half assessed analyst and thier mother give out worse case scenerios - babble babble babble - I flipped through all of the networks including CNN and FNN -- the same dribble. Alas, a well trained pilot and a great crew. Makes me want to book a flight on Jet Blue (Vegas anyone?).
I was expecting the nose wheel strut to collapse and that the plane would skid in on its belly. It could very easily have been a flaming disaster. But the pilot brought it in as slowly as possible and kept the nose up as long as he could. And the plane's European designers showed that they certainly know their way around designing robust landing gear. I don't know why the gear has to rotate 90 degrees to be stowed though. Apparently this problem has happened on that Airbus model once before, because of a hydraulic failure in the gear assembly. That plane landed safely too. The engineers might want to revisit this and maybe prescribe a maintaince modification. Concerning crew kudos, another accident that impressed me was that Air France Airbus that skidded off the runway in Toronto during a thunderstorm. It burst into flames and was engulfed quickly, but the intreped flight attendents had already gotten everyone off in 90 seconds (hundreds of them) and everyone on board survived with no more than minor injuries.
I heard it on the news this morning going into work -- I've got sirrius. I saw it when I got to work. I was amazed that the passengers were watching it as it was happening to them on the TVs on the plane. They had news! Amazing landing. Kudos to the pilot.
This event was hyped up by the media. Aircraft are designed to withstand a gear up landing; see this FAA regulation re fuel systems for example http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAdvisoryCircular.nsf/0/b15ce14660cd813e862569b30054790f?OpenDocument In reading about several such landings I can't recall an injury. However, still a terific landing by the pilot and the emergency crews at LAX.
