Talk about a surreal time. This had to be freaky. How would you have handled the situation.
JetBlue Passengers Watched News of Drama Sep 22, 09:34 AM EDT By DAISY NGUYEN - Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The airliner circled Southern California for hours, crippled by a faulty landing gear, while inside its cabin 140 passengers watched their own life-and-death drama unfolding on live television.
While satellite TV sets aboard JetBlue Flight 292 were tuned to news broadcasts, some passengers cried. Others tried to telephone relatives and one woman sent a text message to her mother in Florida attempting to comfort her in the event she died.
"It was very weird. It would've been so much calmer without" the televisions, Pia Varma of Los Angeles said after the plane skidded to a safe landing Wednesday evening in a stream of sparks and burning tires. No one was hurt.
Varma, 23, and other passengers said the plane's monitors carried live DirectTV broadcasts on the plane's problems until just a few minutes before landing at Los Angeles International Airport.
The landing gear trouble - the front wheels were stuck in a sideways position - was discovered almost immediately after the plane departed Bob Hope Airport in Burbank at 3:17 p.m., en route to New York City.
The Airbus A320 circled the Long Beach Airport, about 30 miles south of Burbank, before being cleared to land at Los Angeles. It stayed in flight for three hours to burn off fuel, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Donn Walker.
Zachary Mastoon of New York said it was "surreal" to watch his plane's fate being discussed on live TV while it was in the air. At one point, he said, he tried to call his family, but his cell phone call wouldn't go through.
"I wanted to call my dad to tell him I'm alive so far," the 27-year-old musician said.
The pilot finally brought the plane down, back wheels first. As he slowly lowered the nose gear, the stuck wheels erupted in smoke and flames, which quickly burned out.
"At the end it was the worst because you didn't know if it was going to work, if we would catch fire. It was very scary. Grown men were crying," said Diane Hamilton, 32, a television graphics specialist.
As the plane was about to touch the ground, Hamilton said crew members ordered people to assume a crash position, putting their heads between their knees.
"They would yell, "Brace! Brace! Brace!'" she said. "I thought this would be it."
I heard one of the passengers say that about an hour before they landed they lost the tv signal. I am guessing this was intentional! Nothing like watching your impending doom live on tv. They also said that the media's attention gave them unneeded feelings of hopelessness and fear. I commend the pilot and crew whom I have heard nothing but praise for, for their calmness and preparedness!
We watched it on tv for about an hour. It was kind of like watching a race that wouldn't end. And when it did it was like That was it?? Oh well glad everyone is safe.
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Sometimes, when i'm lonely... i crawl into a laundry basket and tickle my ears. But, Some times I don't...
Whether I was watching it or the mating habits of antartic penguins, I would have been freaking out. It wouldn't have mattered to me what we were watching. I'm glad everyone is all right.
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Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you do criticize them you will be a mile away and have their shoes.
Yeah, I can see it now. The male Wigi Wigi bird swoops down for the inevitable mating dance when all of a sudden both of his wings snap off when he hits the ground....
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Sometimes, when i'm lonely... i crawl into a laundry basket and tickle my ears. But, Some times I don't...
Oh well glad everyone is safe.
