Plane Returns to John Wayne Safely After Engine Fire

A Northwest Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing at John Wayne Airport on Saturday after a bird flew into an engine. But the plane landed safely, to the relief of its 103 nervous passengers and crew.

The Airbus A320 touched down at 9:11 a.m., about 30 minutes after takeoff, to the thunderous applause and loud cheers of not only those aboard but a phalanx of firefighters, airport security and other support personnel on the ground, witnesses said. It was the second time in two weeks that a plane had to make an emergency landing at John Wayne Airport shortly after taking off.

As the plane foundered over the ocean minutes earlier, 34-year-old passenger Bruce Braunstein of Newport Beach took out an engagement ring and offered it to his girlfriend, who immediately accepted. When the plane landed, Braunstein broke the happy news to the rest of the passengers.

“Hey, we’re getting married,” he yelled from the back of the plane.

Once safely on the ground, he explained his logic.

“I was going to ask her at some point on the trip,” said Braunstein, who was on his way to Philadelphia to visit his family with the woman he hoped would become his fiancee. “This speeded things up a little more.”

Flight 208 departed John Wayne Airport about 8:45 a.m. Several passengers said that as the plane headed skyward, they heard a loud bang, akin to a firecracker; then came a shudder and a series of strong vibrations. Lynn Troianelli, 42, looked out her window at the rear of the plane and saw “flames shooting out from the engine.”

Her voice still shaking an hour later, Troianelli recounted her fears.

“I was by myself on this row of three seats,” said Troianelli, from Basking Ridge, N.J., “when I saw the flames, I let out a muffled scream. I didn’t want to yell or anything because I didn’t want anyone to panic. There was a lady in front of me with two children.”

Troianelli said she buried her face in her hands and prayed, “God help us.” On the other side of the fuselage, her 14-year-old son, Ryan, sat calmly, wondering what was for lunch, he said.

“I didn’t realize what was happening, so I pretty much stayed cool throughout,” he said.

About a dozen passengers interviewed Saturday said that for the most part, people expressed no fear and stayed orderly. But the outward calmness did not mirror what was going on inside their minds, several said.

“The first thing I thought was, ‘This is it.’ We weren’t gaining altitude,” said Doug Condra, 59, of Newport Beach, who was on his way to visit his mother near Detroit. “Then I was hoping that we’d make it to the ocean. I didn’t want to go down among a bunch of buildings.”

Across from him, a woman “buried her head in a book,” Condra said. June Veith, 54, of Los Alamitos, looked out the window and prayed that she wouldn’t “end up in that pool of water below.” Shannon Porter, a child development specialist from Virginia Beach, Va., said her only thought was about being able to set her feet on solid ground.

“Everybody was quiet, just holding on,” said Porter, 55. “I just thought, ‘Let me out of here. I want off this plane.’ ”

Condra, who referred to the experience as “the biggest thrill” of his flying career, said he thought about his family and almost picked up the plane’s phone to dial home.

“Then the pilot came on and told us we were going to be OK,” Condra said. “He told us we just took a bird and we would be returning to John Wayne. That helped a lot, I think.”

*

About eight miles from shore, the plane circled and headed back to the airport. Because the plane’s fuel tank was too heavy for a safe landing, the pilot burned some excess fuel by circling for about 20 minutes over El Toro Marine Corps Air Station before gliding into the runway at John Wayne, Federal Aviation Administration and Northwest officials said.

The Airbus landed without incident and no injuries were reported, said Capt. Scott Brown, spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority, which had 45 firefighters on scene in case of emergency.

“I let out a long exhale when the wheels hit the ground,” said Veith, who was on her way to Ohio. “Then my knees started to shake. I guess that’s when I really realized what happened. . . . It feels like a little historical moment just happened in my life.”

Jon Austin, spokesman for Northwest Airlines, said that after landing, the plane taxied to an area off the runway, where mechanics cleaned out the engine and determined that a bird “had been ingested.”

“The bird lost, but our engine took a hit too,” he said. “When something solid hits the fan blades, which spin very fast, the blades will usually suffer some damage.”

The incident also caused a stir in neighborhoods near the airport, where many residents witnessed the flames bursting out of the plane’s engine. Calls inundated the fire authority about the time the plane took off, Brown said.

Mark Howard, 34, of Santa Ana Heights, said he was reading the morning paper when he heard the bang and looked out his window to see the plane’s engine on fire.

“It just looked like a rocket, then it seemed to be losing power and limping along,” he said. “We live pretty close to the runway, about half a mile. The sound of it was so loud that we were afraid the plane could have crashed into our apartment.”

Howard and his wife, Kirsten, hopped into their pickup and followed the plane around the El Toro area and saw the smooth landing at John Wayne.

“When it touched down, everybody was cheering and clapping,” Howard said.

*

Saturday’s incident was the second time this month that a plane was forced to return to John Wayne because of mechanical problems. On Nov. 4, an American Airlines jet carrying 110 passengers made a U-turn shortly after takeoff because crew members heard a bang in the left engine. No injuries were reported in that incident.

Although mishaps involving birds are not common, they do happen often enough that pilots are trained to deal with them, Northwest’s Austin said. Several years ago, another takeoff was complicated when a flock of pigeons flew into the plane’s engine, said Pat Markley, spokeswoman for John Wayne.

Passengers on the Detroit-bound flight were rerouted through other airlines and a later Northwest flight. The crew was relieved of duties for the day.

“They’ve had enough to deal with,” Austin said. “We’ve had several [passengers] tell us what an excellent crew they’ve been through this.”

As they stood in line to board another flight, Braunstein and his new fiancee held hands and laughed about the proposal. In Braunstein’s backpack was a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, a gift from the crew to celebrate the engagement.

“We’re going to open it when we finally get to where we’re going,” he said.