Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Emergency Airliner Landing

Good news, a Jet Blue airliner has just completed a safe Emergency Landing at LAX after its nose gear became stuck in a 90 degree turned position. A couple of quick thoughts.

1) Good on the designers of that gear that it was able to withstand the shearing force of a touchdown while in full drag contact with the runway.

2) Someone is going to get their ass handed to them when the investigation goes through every piece of paper generated in the production of that gear gets sifted. Figure on at least a dozen pieces of paper for each step from pulling the metal out of the ground to installing the finished part onto the plane. You would have to think that someone at Jet Blue is already organizing the data pull.

3) Jet Blue advertises live TV at each seat. Was that service still active as the plane circled to burn off fuel? If yes, could you imagine how surreal that would have been? I'm sure someone is going to be starting a study as to whether such access to information during an emergency situation is a good thing or not.

No comments: