be those of a c-21 military aircraft and that would be the military variant of a leer jet. again, we don t really have any information as to who is on board this aircraft at this point, just being told by the airport as well as the faa that eight passengers currently on this plane, it is circling over the runways, and the fire department in st. louis is standing by to assist. once that landing happens, we know that this plane has been circling since about 1:00 this afternoon. but as far as the reported problems at this point from the faa, saying it is a leer jet 45, reported problems with the landing gear door, it s possible they re spending this time troubleshooting, which is why we have seen it go by so many different times here. this is an emergency situation as you can tell by just all of the crews on the ground there, preparing for potentially what could be a bad situation or perhaps they troubleshoot this, they fix it and the plane gets on the ground safely. you know, it is int
a problem with the possibility of fire, that would be it is a fire retardant and that would help. i ve seen that done a number of ti times. do we know, miles o brien, you know planes and you know aviation pretty intimately, but where within this particular kind of plane this lear jet 45, is the gas tank? well, it is mostly in the wings. they call them wet wings. and so that, you know, you want to make sure that it is an abundance of caution. the fact is if this pilot performs a nice, smooth landing, it is not going to breach the fuel tank and cause a fire. having said that, less weight is better for sure. and less fuel is always better than more. so and it does provide the flight crew an opportunity, while in the air, to
airport, and diane earhart jumped on the phone with me, confirmed this was not a military plane. it is not a government plane. this is a private jet. so now we learn from our affiliate ktvi that this plane has now decided to go from this smaller airport, st. louis downtown airport, to the big major airport in st. louis, that being lambert field. i ve got miles o brien with me, aviation expert, cnn s aviation expert tory dunnen, mike brooks talking law enforcement, law enforcement analyst with me here. and, tory, let s begin with you as we are resetting and as we are awaiting the next steps for this plane, tell me what you know. so the next steps, of course, this according to the faa saying that, of course they might be troubleshooting this issue. and that is sort of something that miles had touched on earlier saying, you know, why it might be taking a while for us to actually see this plane. the fact that there are all these different elements here, there is a crew of two from what w
a landing as possible here. interesting, very interesting. the last pass we saw three wheels down. saw front wheel, it appeared to be down from my eye, also the two wheels on the wings, apparently a problem, tory just reporting here a problem with the landing gear door. they made three passes now to get some kind of visual confirmation about what s going on. they been notified. they may need to make an emergency landing, emergency crews, this st. louis fire department there have been landing gear problems. st. louis downtown emergency crews are on the scene right now anticipating the possibility of an emergency landing. can t see the plane in this picture right now. our cameras have been able to pick it up several times as it comes in and attempts the landing. we re following this. until that plane is safely on the ground. it is a leer jet. tory, one more time what kind of jet are we looking at? actually, i m getting new information here as well, the markings on the plane appear
various sensors come on, lights indicating an engine is running hot and a crew might declare an emergency as a result of that. we don t hear about a lot of them. this kind of situation tends to draw a crowd. not only do we hear about them, but we have time to do witness it all happen. we re approaching the bottom of the hour. i want to reset what we re looking at. i know we re just looking at sky right now. this is perhaps in between these two different airports. we re watching a possible emergency landing situation involving a lear jet 45. the issue, according to the faa, there are issues with a landing gear door. we re also hearing specifically from the airport saying it is a nose gear problem. we don t know if those are two different issues. perhaps it is a landing gear door within the nose of the plane that could be the issue, so this pilot, we know there are eight people on board this particular plane, i was talking to the airport initially trying to land at st. louis downtown