For Passengers, Humor, Tears -- Then Cheers

For Matthew Ash, a 24-year-old Gardena resident on a church trip to New York’s Catskill Mountains, the first sign of trouble came from an icon of a JetBlue plane.

The plane -- on the animated map at his seat -- “wasn’t going anywhere,” he said, “just hanging around in Los Angeles.”

A few minutes later, he heard the calm male voice of Flight 292’s pilot, Scott Burke, speaking over the plane’s intercom: “For those of you who may have noticed we are flying in circles,” Ash recalled the pilot saying, “we are currently experiencing difficulties with the front landing gear.”

The landing gear had not retracted, the pilot said.

A young woman at his side turned to him nervously: “So what does that mean?” she asked.

After a while came a second announcement. This sounded more ominous. The wheel was crooked. They were being diverted to Long Beach.

Just after that, the situation took an abrupt, bizarre turn.

The back of each seat on a JetBlue plane is equipped with a small television set. As passengers watched, live, in-flight broadcasts of MSNBC and Fox News began to show their airplane. Ash glanced at the television of the passenger next to him: “At first I just thought, ‘Of course, Fox News,’ ” he said, discounting the story as sensationalized. “But then it was on MSNBC.”

People started to worry. “It was so eerie watching ourselves,” Ash said. “It was unimaginable.... We heard people speculating about this and that. It was so odd.”

Somehow, being on the TV news “made it a big deal.”

Passengers reacted with a range of emotions -- some quietly upset and concerned, but most very calm. A few began laughing. Ash joined them. Once he saw the humor of it, the sense wouldn’t leave him: “It was just such an absurd situation,” he said.

But his humor faded as he listened to television commentators talking about the flight.

“One guy was saying, ‘You know, I’m just speculating, but the landing gear will break off, and the nose will drive into the pavement,’ and this and that.”

It went on like that, one expert after another saying the noise would be horrific, that it would be awful.

The news broadcasts continued to be beamed to the passengers until shortly before the end of the flight, when the headlines beneath the televised images began saying the plane would make an emergency landing, Ash said. Then the TVs were shut off.

In the meantime, the pilots and crew talked extensively to the passengers, relating instructions, going over landing procedures and calming fears. They moved as many passengers as possible to seats in the rear of the cabin, leaving several rows in front empty, he said. All the carry-on luggage also was moved to the back. Crew members explained that the plane had to land with its nose in the air and the damaged front wheel held off the ground as long as possible. More weight in the rear might help.

Among the passengers, strangers began talking. One passenger gave a stewardess a kiss as she bent over him. She laughed, and so did those around them.

The crew sought out the handful of doctors on the flight, including Ash’s flying companion, moved them to specified seats and told them to be ready.

They reassured passengers: “This is not rare. It has happened before. Everything was going to be OK. Even in the worst-case scenario, we would be OK,” Ash recalled.

But as the plane drew closer to the ground, emotions intensified, he said. People remained quiet. Many held hands. A few cried.

Parents tried to calm their children, and a baby cried. In front of Ash, a woman began sobbing loudly.

As the plane approached the runway, the pilot told passengers to brace themselves.

Everyone bent over, heads between their knees. The flight crew began chanting: “Brace, brace, brace!”

As the plane touched down, Ash heard the voice of the man who had been placed in the empty seat next to him. The man was murmuring quietly: “Stop, stop, stop,” as if exhorting the plane to obey. Ash remembers praying.

But other than that, there was quiet in the cabin and calm. The landing itself was surprisingly smooth, he said -- “Like driving a car with a flat tire.” It was only slightly rougher than a normal landing, he added.

Then the plane came to a halt, and the cabin erupted in cheers.

When the pilot emerged to stand among the passengers, the cheers redoubled, and the pilot was hugged and applauded.

But Ash also recalled a few passengers who did not join the celebration. They remained frozen in their seats, he said, in the same position they had assumed for the landing, too terrified to move.