Please join me in thinking good thoughts for the Jet Blue passengers

[gardenista]

A Jet Blue plane is circling LAX, dumping fuel, with the nose landing gear stuck at a 90 degree angle from the nose of the plane. Please think your good thoughts, say your prayers if you want to do that, whatever works for you. There are 130+ people aboard.

My husband, thank God, is not one of them. In the air, on Jet Blue, but on another flight. This makes it all way too close to home. I will hug him extra hard when I pick him up tonight.

[huskerlaw]

1. That's so scary...

positive thoughts headed that way.

[gardenista]

2. UPDATE- they can't dump fuel. Will fly for some period of time to try

and burn some off, and then land on a long, foamed, runway.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Oh good grief...how horrible...

My good thoughts are going out to them...just three miles away from me.....

That is just HORRIBLE......:scared:

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

4. Thank goodness your hubby is not on that flight... watching and wishing

them the best... how terrified they must be!!

:scared:

[gardenista]

6. Thank you. It looks like the pilots and everyone else are doing the right

things. Naturally, I had to go to the jetblue website and track my husband's plane, just to be sure. Irrational, but there you have it.

Thanks for your good thoughts, CLW!

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

11. Oh, I'd be neurotic about that, too.

Just keep remembering all of the people that safely evacuated the last issue with landing. At least here, they seem totally prepared. Jet Blue has a good safety record, hoping for the best.

On 9/11, I was a wreck cuz I have a friend who is a flight attendant for United. The second I heard that a United flight was involved, I was worried sick. Thankfully, she called in sick that day, though was not scheduled for any of those flights, she would have been in NJ when it happened.

I hope you can talk to your husband soon for some reassurance. :hug:

[gardenista]

12. I won't see him until 9:40 tonight. He's in the air now, non-stop.

God, I can't imagine what the families of the people on board are going through.

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

27. Whew. Take comfort that your husband is in good hands.

:hug:

[gardenista]

30. Thank you, I'm crying right now, I don't know why! Going to get him now!

:hug:

Thanks understanding my weirdness!

I couldn't stand to follow it anymore, I was getting completely wound up.

It's wonderful to come back and find that it all went beautifully!

[Thtwudbeme]

5. Thinking of them

How long will they have to fly?

omg, those poor folks....how frightening is that?

[huskerlaw]

8. They're landing in 6 minutes.

Although the pilot on CNN says they may take multiple runs at it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. Oh man *praying hard*

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[gardenista]

9. Let's hope that the people running Jet Blue are as competent

as they seem. Thank God George Bush isn't flying this one!

I don't know how long they'll have to fly, but I imagine they've told the passengers what is going on, perhaps soft-peddaling it a little.

Hope the brakes are in good shape.

[huskerlaw]

7. They're saying that

it's possible to land it on the back wheels, and not put the nose down until they've slowed WAY down. Pilot currently on CNN says it's not horribly dangerous.

Fingers crossed.

[gardenista]

10. Thanks for that info. That's a hopeful sign. nt

[gardenista]

13. UPDATE- landing very soon, runway has been foamed. nt

[Initech]

14. Oh shit! I think I saw that plane from the air on my way home!

I live about an hour from LAX so maybe it was. I had no idea that it's circling.

[lpbk2713]

15. There's a website somewhere that has the LAX Air Traffic Control

tower live but I don't recall the URL.

I wish them all well.

[Elidor]

17. Atrios says they can watch their plight on the news?!

"Jet Blue passengers have seatback monitors with DirectTV, and thus have the ability to watch live coverage of their troubles..."

[huskerlaw]

18. They have that capability

CNN is talking about it, as their channel is one of the options. They don't know whether that particular function has been turned off. For, well, obvious reasons.

[SIU_Blue]

19. As a pilot (not the commercial kind)

just the for fun kind, I can tell you that this is not usually one of the things that causes huge problems. Having landing gear stuck, while it is unnerving and obviously scary, will most likely not result in anything over minor scratches and headaches. The thing which is fortunate is that it is the nose gear stuck. The pilot will land on the main gear, as usual, and then hold the nose wheel off of the runway until the speed of the plane is slow enough that gravity brings the nose down. I can't completely garuntee that nothing bad happens, but this sort of thing happens quite often without catastrophic results.

Regardless, I have everyone onboard in my thoughts.

[huskerlaw]

20. It looks like it's landing....

cross your fingers

[huskerlaw]

21. UPDATE: It landed!

Everything's fine!!!

Little bit of smoke from the front wheels...now fire, as the front wheels burn.

They've stopped. Thank god.

[nytemare]

22. Oh thank god

What a pilot.

[SIU_Blue]

24. Yep, your typical emergency, soft field landing

good thing it went smoothly.

[huskerlaw]

23. UPDATE: The plane is completely stopped

I don't see any fire, they're not tossing out emergency slides or anything.

Fabulous pilots. Wow.

[SIU_Blue]

25. Airline Pilots are very well trained

They practice that and many other scenarios in simulators!!!

Not to take away from that pilot, a great job of aviating, for sure.

[Graf Orlok]

26. The plane landed safely.

Kudos to the pilots. :toast:

[peekaloo]

28. Jet Blue have been donating their planes for Katrina relief aid.

Bless them.

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

29. And, they are blue...

http://www.buyblue.org/node/1244/view/summary