A Scary 2 1/2 Hours on Corporate Jet for Taco Bell Execs : Safety: The six get back down safely after plane’s landing gear sticks over Dallas. Some companies ban top officers from flying together, just in case.

The president of Taco Bell Inc. and five top executives landed safely Thursday after a corporate jet developed trouble with its landing gear shortly after takeoff from a Dallas airport.

The six officials, returning to the company’s Irvine headquarters after a meeting, made nervous conversation for 2 1/2 hours as their Canadair Challenger circled Love Field in Dallas to burn off fuel, said one passenger.

Unlike some Orange County-based companies, Taco Bell has no policy prohibiting several key executives from flying together.

“I think people were frightened of having a crash landing. It was never clear until the very end when things worked the way they were supposed to work,” said Taco Bell general counsel Richard Smith, who was a passenger aboard the plane with company President John Martin and four others.

Martin is one of the fast food industry’s most revered leaders these days. Taco Bell, a Pepsico subsidiary, has posted spectacular sales increases through the marketing of cut-rate Mexican-style food. Martin and the others had flown to Dallas to attend a Pepsico meeting.

But their flight out went awry when a nose wheel failed to fully retract after takeoff. After the airport tower confirmed that the wheel of the twin jet was stuck, pilot Steve Nielsen circled until he and two other crewmen got it lowered manually.

Meanwhile, the passengers made “small talk and business talk,” which Smith described as a mix of anxiety about landing and company chitchat.

“It was a situation where the passengers understood perfectly that (their safety) was in the hands of the crew. Everyone kept their cool. No one acted emotionally,” he said.

Once the plane finally landed at 10:25 a.m. PST, the executives switched to another Pepsico jet that happened to be at the airport and returned to Orange County without making a planned stopover in Phoenix.

Although Taco Bell would not confirm the names of everyone aboard, Jack Daly, public affairs vice president, described all the passengers as top corporate staff. He said he did not know whether the incident would prompt a decision about limiting the number of executives who travel together.

“When we need people in a certain place, we’re going to get there as fast as possible,” he said. “You got to go where the work is.”

Although the 1987 crash of a Pacific Southwest Airlines jetliner in Central California, which killed the president and three senior managers of Chevron USA, prompted some firms to adopt travel guidelines, many have not.

The Irvine Co. has no executive travel policy, but a spokeswoman points out that their business does not involve much corporate travel.

AST Research Inc. also lacks a formal policy, but the company’s two founders generally try to stay off the same plane.

“It is something they are cognizant of but it doesn’t come up that often where you actually do have a number of top executives flying to one particular function,” said spokeswoman Deborah Paquin.

Travel agencies specializing in corporate travel are increasingly recommending that companies adopt policies to limit the number of top staff flying together.

“We’re strong proponents of covering all the bases in a travel policy,” said Lewis S. Lustman, spokesman for the McDonnell Douglas Travel Co. in Huntington Beach. Besides groups of executives, travel agents also discourage too many employees in a single department from flying together.

Because top executives often book their reservations through an exclusive reservations desk, Lustman said agents can keep tabs on whether a company is putting too many of its officers on a flight.

One company with a strong corporate travel policy is Carl Karcher Enterprises. The policy strictly forbids the chairman, president and executive vice president from traveling on the same plane. It also restricts joint travel by any three vice presidents.

Chairman Carl N. Karcher and his brother, President Donald F. Karcher, are so steadfast about the policy that they flew separately to a family gathering in Cabo San Lucas in Baja California for Thanksgiving last year, according to Karcher spokeswoman Patty Parks.