TV terror: passengers watched plane drama unfold

THE airliner circled Southern California for hours, crippled by a faulty landing gear, while, inside its cabin, 140 horrified passengers watched their own life-and-death drama unfolding on live television.

While satellite TV sets aboard JetBlue Flight 292 were tuned to news broadcasts, some passengers cried. Others tried to telephone relatives and one woman sent a text message to her mother in Florida attempting to comfort her in the event she died.

"It was very weird. It would've been so much calmer without the televisions," Pia Varma of Los Angeles said after the plane skidded to a safe landing on Wednesday evening in a stream of sparks and burning tires. No one was hurt.

Ms Varma, 23, and other passengers said the plane's monitors carried live DirectTV broadcasts on the plane's problems until just a few minutes before landing at Los Angeles International Airport.

The landing gear trouble - the front wheels were stuck in a sideways position - was discovered almost immediately after the plane departed Bob Hope Airport in Burbank at 3.17pm (11.17pm Irish time), en route to New York City.

The Airbus A320 circled the Long Beach Airport, about 30 miles south of Burbank, before being cleared to land at Los Angeles. It stayed in flight for three hours to burn off fuel, said Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokesman Donn Walker.

Zachary Mascoon of New York said it was "surreal" to watch his plane's fate being discussed on live TV while it was in the air. At one point, he said, he tried to call his family, but his mobile phone call wouldn't go through.

"I wanted to call my dad to tell him I'm alive so far," he said.

The pilot finally brought the plane down, back wheels first. As he slowly lowered the nose gear, the stuck wheels erupted in smoke and flames, which quickly burned out.

"At the end it was the worst because you didn't know if it was going to work, if we would catch fire ... Grown men were crying," said Diane Hamilton, a television graphics specialist.

As the plane was about to touch the ground, Ms Hamilton said crew members ordered people to assume a crash position, putting their heads between their knees.

"They would yell, 'Brace! Brace! Brace!'" she said. "I thought this would be it."

Lisa Schiff, of LA, sent a text message to her mother in Miami that said: "I love you. Don't worry about me. If something happens, know that I am watching you and Daddy and (her brother) David."

Emergency crews from across the area met the plane on the runway. Spectators gathered on buildings and stood on parked cars to see firsthand as passengers walked down a stairway onto the tarmac with their carry-on luggage.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who spoke with the pilot, identified him as Scott Burke and praised him for the calm he showed during the flight.

"He joked that he was sorry he put the plane down six inches off the centre line," he said.

Ann Decrozals, an Airbus spokeswoman at the aircraft manufacturer's headquarters in France, said the A320 was designed to be able to land with front wheel problems.

JetBlue spokeswoman Jenny Dervin said the airline was investigating the incident with the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board. She declined to identify the pilot and first officer.

JetBlue, based in Forest Hills, New York, is a five- year-old low-fare airline with 286 flights a day and destinations in 13 states and the Caribbean. It operates a fleet of 81 A320s.