A JetBlue airliner with 146 people aboard made an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport last night, dragging its crippled nose gear down the runway in a hail of sparks and smoke before coming safely to rest.
There were no immediate reports of injuries during the drama, which began when pilots realized the plane's front wheels did not retract properly on takeoff and ended after the Airbus A320 jet circled the southern California coast for three hours to burn off fuel.
The entire incident played out on live television, with a number of US networks carrying pictures of the airborne Flight 292 with its nose gear turned sideways.
Images of the landing showed the pilot easing the plane onto the airport's longest runway as smoke and sparks shot from the burning front wheels before the plane came to a rest. Flames were no longer visible by the time the plane had stopped.
Fire and emergency crews surrounded the plane, which had been en route from nearby Burbank to New York, and a truck equipped with a stairway pulled up to the aircraft. Passengers, some smiling, streamed calmly off, guided by firefighters in silver flame-retardant suits. Buses then took them to a terminal.
The travellers later recounted fraught hours they spent watching their own predicament unfold on television screens built into the back of each seat, a feature offered through DirecTV on JetBlue flights.
"The thing that scared me the most was watching it on television," said passenger Zachary Mastoon, 27, a New York guitarist.
"It felt like the New York subway, rattling and shaking," Dave Rienicz, 39, a comedian from Burbank, said of the landing. "It was pretty intense, but it wasn't panicky."
Rienicz said he videotaped a brief goodbye message to his girlfriend with a camera "just in case."
Alexandra Jacobs, 6-1/2 months pregnant, recalled members of the flight crew chanting "Brace, brace, brace" as the plane touched down. "That for me was scary, because it felt like a prayer," she said.