Disabled Plane Makes Safe Landing in Ontario

A Southwest Airlines flight carrying 132 people from Las Vegas to Burbank was forced to make an emergency landing in Ontario on Tuesday afternoon, dragging one engine to a screeching halt on two-thirds of its landing gear as passengers prayed, wept and then cheered their safe arrival.

“It just felt so scary that you can’t describe it,” said passenger Steve Mouradian, 35, of Pasadena.

“You’re thinking, I just know this plane is going to blow up.”

No one aboard was injured, airline officials said, though one passenger with a history of heart problems who complained of chest pains was taken to a nearby hospital.

With the aircraft’s left landing gear disabled, officials on the ground and in the air had prepared for a fiery crash-landing.

Ontario International Airport was closed and ambulances and fire engines were posted on the runway. In the air, the 127 passengers aboard Flight 1767 obeyed flight attendants’ orders to remove jewelry, eyeglasses and shoes that could fly loose and then assumed positions to prepare for the impact of a crash, heads braced on crossed arms that rested against the seats in front of them, witnesses said.

The feared crash, however, did not materialize. The plane’s captain, who has flown for Southwest for eight years, successfully brought the plane down on its right and front landing gear and “we hardly felt anything,” said passenger Raymond Raffooly, 35, of Glendale.

“Everyone was clapping and shouting, ‘We made it, thank God,’ ” Raffooly said.

Despite the smooth landing, the relieved passengers were quickly evacuated on an inflated emergency slide in the rear as firefighters doused the plane--which came to rest tilted to the rear, nose up--with flame-retardant chemicals as a precaution.

No flames broke out, though the aircraft’s left engine dragged along the runway.

The Boeing 737-3H4 left Las Vegas at 1 p.m. and was scheduled to arrive at Burbank Airport an hour later.

The trouble began about 15 minutes before the scheduled landing when the left landing gear became stuck and defied repeated in-air attempts to dislodge it, said Linda Rutherford, an airline spokeswoman.

The plane was rerouted to Ontario, which has longer runways and fewer buildings. “With the difficulty with the landing gear, we were worried there would be a steering problem so we wanted to make sure we were somewhere with more space,” she said.

The jetliner flew past the Ontario control tower low enough for air traffic controllers to visually confirm the position of the disabled gear.

While over Burbank, en route to Ontario, and at the second airport, the plane’s crew made several attempts to force down the jammed landing gear. Although the captain took pains to explain what was occurring, the efforts, which resembled a stunt pilot’s daredevil aerial antics, further unnerved the already frightened passengers, several of them said.

One of the maneuvers, called a “touch and go,” involved swooping above the runway and gently bouncing the plane’s working landing gear against the pavement in the hope that the broken element “would pop into place,” Rutherford said.

Back in the air, the pilot made several sharp, sudden turns, trying to hurl the malfunctioning gear outward with the force of gravity--an exercise several passengers compared to riding a roller coaster.

Passenger Jeff Young, 29, of North Hollywood said knowing that those attempts to shake the wheel loose had failed, many people on the flight thought their lives were about to end.

“After like two or three things didn’t work, you start thinking, so this could be it,” he said.

The plane landed at 2:40 p.m., about an hour after the ordeal began.

“I was hysterical . . . like a crazy person,” said a visibly shaken Vickie Ackers, 33, of North Hollywood, as she got off the bus the airlines used to ferry passengers from Ontario to Burbank after the landing. Another passenger, Las Vegas resident Donna Villacorta, 22, held Ackers’ hand and tried to calm her. “She started panicking and I just felt it was going to be OK,” Villacorta said.

“People were crying, we didn’t know if we were going to be alive the next minute,” Raffooly said.

“The whole entire thing was just praying to God,” Ackers said.

Southwest’s Rutherford said the airline did not yet know why the landing gear malfunctioned. The incident is the first of its kind in Southwest’s 25-year history, she said. The airline, which recently won an industry award for safety and quality, has never had a fatal accident, she said.

The Las Vegas-to-Burbank trip was the 8-year-old jetliner’s sixth flight of the day. Its itinerary began Tuesday morning in Salt Lake City and included legs to Boise, Idaho; Portland, Ore., and then back to Boise and Salt Lake City before it arrived in Las Vegas.

Before taking off for Burbank, the plane’s crew gave it a visual inspection, Rutherford said. The aircraft last received a major maintenance check April 16, she said.