Here’s a nightmare scenario: you’re on an airplane and the pilot tells you to “brace, brace, brace” for the landing, because the landing gear isn’t coming out.
That’s what happened on U.S. Airways flight 1825 from Philadelphia to Houston on Monday night, where the plane was forced to make a crash landing when the nose gear failed to deploy. As ABC-13 news reports:
“We were told to brace, brace, brace,” said passenger Janice Mumma….
“Then they said it looks like the landing gear’s not out. We’re going to have to have a crash landing,” passenger Olin Johnson told us. “That’s when it kind of got scary, because the pilot, you could hear it in his voice he was nervous.”
“They’re telling you to put your head down,” added passenger Dan Hanson. “But everything’s telling you to keep your head up and look around. But then when we actually hit, it really wasn’t that bad.”
Indeed, the plane managed to land safely, without any serious injuries or other incidents. ABC-13 has footage of the landing below, and it’s stunning—the sparks as the plane’s belly makes impact with the tarmac don’t suggest “everything is fine here,” but pilots who take these giant metal tubes into the air are capable of bringing them down safely even when things aren’t working properly, a fact that makes a terrifying story like this feel just a little safer.
