JetBlue Flight 292

I'm sitting dumbstruck in the Sports Bar at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, CA., glued, like everyone else to the TV screen.  We are watching JetBlue 292, carrying 139 passengers--a sleek AirBus, circle the runways of nearby LAX in a perpetual loop, hoping to burn off fuel.  The front wheel of the craft is on a 90 degree angle to where it should be.

The bar is overflowing, people are unusually quiet.  Other TVs have a Phillies baseball game, but everyone is watching this plane with the fouled landing gear circle and circle beneath dreary gray skies.

Then JetBlue 292 starts coming in, coming down.  The pilot seems to do what the announcer said would be the best case. He comes in with his nose up just a little so that the two wheels under the wings take the full brunt of hitting the ground.  He taxis at a fast clip and then slowly eases the nose down and the cripple wheel touches down.  It doesn't budge and the 139 passengers are feeling the bumps.  Sparks start to come out of the wheel then more sparks.  It starting to look like a blaze. "It's going to catch fire and explode a woman next to me says," rather calmly it seemed.

But she is wrong.  JetBlue 292 slows to a halt and the crisis is over.  People start leaving the bar. My plane is starting to board.  I'll have to post this after I am safe and sound, on the ground and safe at home, which I now am.