Editor’s note: Malibu resident Michael Plen wrote about his experience on the JetBlue flight that made an emergency landing at LAX last week.
We left Burbank as normal. Ten minutes in, the pilot said there was a light indicating the landing gear had a problem. After a few minutes, he instructed us that we were going to do a low flyby at the Long Beach Airport, where JetBlue had its base and a good assessment could be made. After the low flyby, the pilot stated that three different sources said we had a serious problem. The front gear was down, but it was turned in a 90-degree position. We would have to return to LAX.
About 10 minutes later, the DirecTV sets in everyone’s seats started popping up with a plane on it. US! Fox News had heard pilot communication and suddenly we were watching the next breaking news story.
“New York bound JetBlue flight 292 to make an emergency crash landing.”
I watched and listened for a very short time, but turned it off, as I couldn’t take all the commentators speculating on the many different ways we could die … or live! It was so surreal! Then a long-range lens actually showed the damaged front landing gear and that’s when you could tell people were really getting nervous. The captain instructed us that we’d be flying around a while to burn off much of the fuel we had for our New York trip, and to determine the best strategy for landing. It was mostly calm, some people cried. The woman next to me burst out, “I’m pregnant, five months, what am I going to do?”
The man on the other side was calm. I looked at my iPod picture of my family for a while thinking about all the possibilities, then turned it off and practiced the best yoga breathing possible and prayed to God. I also tried sending telepathic messages to my wife, child and parents. I asked God to send me a sign. Oddly, at that exact moment, my Blackberry buzzed. I thought, “What does that mean? Is it a good sign or a bad sign?” As it turned out, it was a text message from my wife telling me she loved me. Fortunately, neither she nor my parents had been watching TV and knew nothing about what was going on.
The three-hour wait was pure internal torture. With that much time to assess one’s life and possibilities, it’s amazing how many different scenarios unfold and how you inevitably come to terms with the fact that your time may be up in the next few minutes, that you may be facing a fireball or just be lucky enough to walk away.
The entire time, JetBlue’s team was optimistic, in control and comforting, showing us all the ways to get out, and how to assume the crash position. Bags were moved to the back, as were people with weight to keep the front of the plane light. Then, “Prepare for landing at LAX,” said the captain, as we watched downtown go by, then the Forum. Then it was “assume crash positions” and “Brace, brace, brace!” The TVs had been turned off 15 minutes earlier and in crash position you couldn’t see out the window. “Brace, brace, brace,” the flight attendants kept yelling, but when the back wheels hit, it felt like the softest butterfly landing ever. The plane rolled down the runway on its back tires for a long time, it seemed, but we all knew the inevitable was imminent. What would happen when the front landing gear hit the ground? It was very quiet, just the roar of the plane and the attendants, instructions and then … The plane dropped its nose and we kept moving without the plane cracking its struts. Amazing!
The smell of burnt rubber and metal crept in, but was not harsh and the plane kept moving forward without cracking and then it came to a stop. Fire engines descended on the plane.
“There is no fire,” the attendants said.
(Later, on the news, I would see that indeed the tires had caught on fire, but there was nothing that prompted the Fire Department to spray us down.)
The cabin burst into tremendous cheering, high fives and laughter as all realized the captain and crew had done a genius job in escaping death. I thanked God we had survived! I called my wife and said I was safe and alive and I loved her and my son, Everette. All she could hear was yelling in the background and did not know what had happened. Her earlier text had been a love message sent precisely at the time I was trying to send them telepathic love. I told her to turn on the news. That’s where they saw the flight fiasco I had just been through. We were all allowed to walk off the plane with our luggage and were brought to an area where we were given options, another flight to New York from Long Beach, a hotel or medical assistance. I wasn’t in the mood to go to New York and it was evident where my priorities were. Get home to my family. Two hours later, after drug and bomb sniffing dogs checked every bag on the tarmac, I got into a car and went home. It all felt like a bad reality show, a dream that could be dismissed. When I got home I hugged my wife and kid hard because I was lucky that I could still be in their life. We watched the news and I saw what everyone else had been seeing and that’s when it became more frightening. It all began to sink in. It truly was scarier after the event than it had ever been during it. DirecTV on the flight really made it a horrific experience. We were the reality show within the reality show.
I thank God, but simply it was patience, calm, serenity, prayer, optimism and a great pilot and crew that got us through it.
-Michael Plen