AP: L.A. emergency landing is at least seventh involving sideways gear

[question everything]

Friday, September 23, 2005

L.A. emergency landing is at least seventh involving sideways gear

By: LESLIE MILLER - Associated Press

(snip)

With about 2,500 Airbus A320s in operation worldwide, the number of incidents involving jammed nose gear is not significant, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Greg Martin said Thursday.

"It's a safe aircraft," he said.

(snip)

The A320 family -- which includes the A318, A319 and A321 -- has a somewhat unusual landing gear that rotates before retracting into the fuselage. "It's definitely not the most common way," said Chuck Eastlake, aerospace engineering professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. "The reason is that the ability of the nose wheel to rotate 90 degrees introduces the possibility of failure, exactly like what we saw."

In contrast, Boeing aircraft landing gear all move straight up and down.

The A320 landing gear is moved through hydraulic pressure, when fluid is pumped into a valve, which moves a piston. Rubber seals called O-rings are used to prevent the hydraulic fluid from leaking. But if the hydraulic fluid leaks, the piston won't work right, Eastlake said.

That's what happened in at least two previous incidents. Airbus said the landing gear got stuck because of problems with the seals, and told airlines they should replace the seals on A320 and A321 aircraft.

That message came after a Feb. 16, 1999, incident in which an America West A320 landed at Port Columbus International Airport in Columbus, Ohio, with its nose wheels sideways. The NTSB said in that case that the problem was caused by rubber seals that got pushed out of their groove, which jammed the landing gear.

On Nov. 1, 2002, a JetBlue flight from Buffalo, N.Y., made a safe emergency landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Just 19 days later, a United Airbus A319 turned back after takeoff from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago because the pilot couldn't retract the landing gear. The NTSB found that the latter incident was probably caused by improper assembly of the landing gear's shock absorber assembly.


http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/09/23/news/state/17_02_069_22_05.txt

[Qibing Zero]

1. JetBlue is great

I've yet to fly better, and now I know I can trust the pilots if something does go wrong! Airbuses are really nice aircraft as well, IMO.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. John Glenn Could Be The Pilot

but if there's a serious malfunction it wouldn't make any difference if Beavis and Butthead were pilot and co-pilot...

[Solo_in_MD]

4. There was nothing heroic about the landing, ignore the media blather

The Jet Blue landing was actually nothing special. Soft field landings are taught to every pilot as part of the private pilot curriculum. You have to demonstrate them during check rides etc. He did a good job, but nothing heroic.

[DemoTex]

6. Media blather indeed ...

Paula Zahn must have said 50 times that the JetBlue Airbus was over the ocean "dumping fuel." She even ignored my friend John Wiley (a former Airbus A-320 captain and now a CNN aviation commentator) when he pointed out that JetBlue was "burning fuel" to get to a lower landing weight, lower approach speed, and lower fire hazard state .. not "dumping fuel." Wiley pegged the non-event exactly how it happened one hour before the actual landing.

Zahn even blathered that with Hurricane Rita, a Minneapolis tornado, and the JetBlue A-320 incident, it was the most exciting night of her career. In my opinion, she made a fool of herself. Period.

[Solo_in_MD]

9. The local media was worse

LA CHannel 7 was full time on the plane. Running stream of babble while they showed the plane circling. Truly inane nonsense. IIRC they had their chopper pilot on a live feed as the aviation expert, but he had no luck in trying to keep the clueless reporters from spewing nonsense.

One funny question was the fixation about why there was no fuel dump capability, forgetting of course that the ensuing fuel spill would have required a HazMat response.

[crispini]

19. Alison Stewart on MSNBC was great.

She was very, very reassuring, had many experts on and let them talk. No hysteria, kept reiterating that it was not an uncommon problem and that the pilots are very well trained for this. She was as cool as a cucumber.

[Gormy Cuss]

12. Wiley broke from the hysteria script.

I was laughing at the way he was calmly describing the burning vs. dumping fuel and the simulation training for this sort of event. He was not adding to the drama. I'm surprised they didn't cut him off and let Paula analyze the situation herself.

I don't find the Airbus to be very comfortable as a passenger. The cabin environment is loud and the air quality seems poor. It may just be my imagination but I don't like them.

[DemoTex]

13. They did cut him off!

Wiley was supposed to be back for the actual landing and do a play-by-play, as it were. Paula Zahn was so pissed at being corrected, although mildly and very diplomatically, that she cut John Wiley off. CNN then went with Al Haynes (7/19/1989 UAL DC-10 accident at Sioux City) who has no Airbus experience and, as much as I love and respect Al, did not even know that they no longer foam-down runways. The whip-dick they used for the actual landing was a UAL A-320 co-pilot who was a friend of Paula Zahn's CNN producer. Wiley has a journalism degree, about 25,000 hours flying (including a Vietnam tour at the same time I was there), extensive Airbus experience (including time in our airline's training department), and over 25 years of experience as a trusted aviation journalist. I know. Wiley worked for me when I was editor-in-chief for four years, then I worked for him when he was editor-in-chief for four years, then he worked for me again during our last four years at that aviation magazine.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. It's a good, reliable airplane.

But I would agree that at takeoff power the engines sound like marbles in a blender.

[DemoTex]

20. Which airlines'?

The Airbus A-320 series is ordered with airline-specific engines. US Airways uses the same engine as on their fleet of Boeing 737-300/400s, the GE CFM varient. The Airbus A-321 has two engine options, the Aero Engines V-2530-A5 or CFM International CFM-56-5B1 turbofans. I think that UAL has the V-2530, but I'm not 100%. I have never heard a CFM-56 varient that did not purr like a happy pussycat at takeoff power. Nor, in thousands of hours in CFM-56-powered aircraft, have I ever had even a slight engine problem. Works fine .. lasts a long time.

And then there were those shit-sucking MD-80 P&W JT8D-2XX series engines! I hated those MoFos!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

22. The CFMs sound really raspy to me.

But that might have something to do with where one is sitting. That raspy sound seems more noticeable if I'm in a row right in front of the wing. They also sound kind of whistly when they fly overhead.

[DemoTex]

24. Big front fans.

Great motors. Little, if any, history of engine fires. My kind of powerplant!

Mac

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

16. The A-320 *can't* dump fuel! Paula Zombie is a morAn. I can't figure out

why she and so many of the other media talking heads don't actually listen to the experts they hire to talk about these things.

[Qibing Zero]

7. All I said was I could trust the pilots, not that it was heroic. nt

[MildyRules]

10. Yeah, they practice those

so often in real-life scenarios. I meant they most do hundreds of those rotated gear landings a year. A simulator is just that, a simulator. The pilot did a great job at something he had NEVER done for real before. SHEESH!

[Solo_in_MD]

11. Actually they do

The simulators are quite a bit better than most non pilots realize.

The challenge with a soft field landing is keeping the front wheel just off the ground while the plane slows and easing on to it just prior to stall. While the concept is the same if its on an airliner with a stuck nose gear or fixed gear as in a Cessna 150. What changes from aircraft type to aircraft type is the techniques. It is required practice in type and I've had to demonstrate it in every aircraft I have been checked out in.

Ive done 1000 or more...expect an airline pilot to have at least that many.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

21. Frontier's fleet is all Airbuses and I agree.

Quick takeoff, smooth ride. MKJ

[acmejack]

3. Those problems all sound like improper maintenance.

Those mechanics everyone is laying off might have something to do with it. They have stretched maintenance schedules too.

[11 Bravo]

5. There's a reason the aircraft is called the "Scarebus" ...

by people in the travel industry.

[DemNoir]

8. Outsourced maintenance

Jet Blue is one of the carries that have started sending their aircraft to Central America for maintenance. I don't remember which country.

[karlrschneider]

14. Not correct. MANY large jet airplanes have landing gear that rotates

as it retracts. Some go through way more convoluted motions than a simple 'rotation.'

[DemoTex]

15. Also, some landing gear actually turn slightly for crosswind landings.

The bottom line is that the more complicated the undercarriage, the higher the chance for malfunction. There are even landing gear complications on fixed-gear Cessnas (rare indeed, and usually damage induced). Eh, Karl?

[karlrschneider]

18. LOL, right, Mac! I know either the B-47 or B-52 had x-wind LG

and I know of a few small planes that did too...I think the Staggerwing Beech was one (been a long time so I might be wrong on that one).
I came pretty close to wrecking the gear on a Cessna 140 practicing wheel landings 45 years ago. :D

[DemoTex]

23. In 1966 I checked-out on a Delta pilot's Cessna 195 with X-wind gear.

He ran me through an airline-type ground school on that C-195. I don't blame him a bit. What a great airplane! This Delta pilot had a small airport south of Atlanta and I was doing tail-wheel checkouts for him (mostly young Delta pilots, all retired now) in an Aeronca 7-AC.

That C-195 X-wind gear was weird. I remembered it about 10 years later when I started flying a Commander 690A for a company in Atlanta. The AC-690 has that same "sliding on ice" feeling when taxiing. Did the Shrike? I can't remember. Must have ..

[karlrschneider]

25. I remember the 195 gear but don't know about the Shrike. I 'crashed' a 195

one time...sort of. It had that goofy ignition system with 1 magneto and 1 auto type coil & distributor system. It had rained heavily the night before and apparently the half of the ign system was wet. The plane was full (5? pax?)...and the guy who owned it asked me to fly it. My first try with a 195, I was flying from the right seat and luckily one of my greatest old friends a 10,000+ hour pilot was sitting in the left seat. I gave it throttle and about halfway down the runway it started sputtering. Was too late to stop and I yelled at my buddy in the left seat "TAKE IT!"... I was in full panic mode. He yanked back on the yoke and managed to balloon us over the road in a semi-stall and it scrunched down in "the Greek's" (as we called the poor guy who lived there) back yard...he got it down, with no damage, and we all walked back to the airport office. Later, we had to take down the 'Greek's' fence & my friend managed to take it off ... in about 900 feet.

(My friend is Hurley Boehler who I haven't seen in 10 years, he was chief pilot at the "Nine-Ten" corporation which was the aviation arm of some part of Standard Oil...he let me fly their converted ex-military
B-26 (the Lockheed, not the Martin) a few times. :D)